AUDIO:

POSSIBLE TOPICS: VOTETEXAS.GOV—Voter Information; REGISTER TO VOTE; APPLY FOR MAIL-IN BALLOT; CDC reports a new strain of omicron taking over in the U.S.; ‘You will not cut me out’: Lina Hidalgo blasts colleagues at county ceremony; Almost two months after Election Day, Harris County still doesn’t know if polling site problems kept people from voting; Preliminary FEMA flood map, online dashboard release expected in 2023; Texas family planning clinics require parental consent for birth control following court ruling; FDA to permit some retail pharmacies to dispense abortion pills; Property tax revision, judicial branch expansion among new Texas laws that took effect Jan. 1; White contractors wouldn’t remove Confederate statues. So a Black man did it.; ‘A sea change’: Biden reverses decades of Chinese trade policy; More.

Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio) is now on Wednesdays at 11AM (CT) on KPFT FM-HD2, Houston’s Community Station. You can also hear the show:

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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.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/EwrSlzZC31w

1. Make sure you are registered to vote! VoteTexas.GOV – Texas Voter Information
   1. It;s time to snail-mail (no emails or faxes) in your application for mail-ballots, IF you qualify TEXAS SoS VOTE-BY-MAIL BALLOT APPLICATION (ALL TEXAS COUNTIES) HarrisVotes.com­ – Countywide Voting Centers, (Election Information Line (713) 755-6965), Harris County Clerk
   2. Harris County “Vote-By-Mail’ Application for 2022
      1. Fort bend County Elections/Voter Registration Machine takes you to the proper link
      2. GalvestonVotes.org (Galveston County, TX)
      3. Liberty County Elections (Liberty County, TX)
      4. Montgomery County (TX) Elections
      5. Brazoria County (TX) Clerk Election Information
      6. Waller County (TX) Elections
      7. Chambers County (TX) Elections
      8. 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.
      9. 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.
      10. HarrisVotes.com – Countywide Voting Centers, HARRIS COUNTY – IDENTIFICATION REQUIRED FOR VOTING: Do not possess and cannot reasonably obtain one of these IDs?
          1. 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:
          2. A government document that shows your name and an address, including your voter registration certificate
          3. Current utility bill
          4. Bank statement
          5. Government check
          6. Paycheck
          7. 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)
          8. You may vote early by-mail if:You are registered to vote and meet one of the following criteria:
             1. Away from the county of residence on Election Day and during the early voting period;
             2. Sick or disabled;
             3. 65 years of age or older on Election Day; or
             4. Confined in jail, but eligible to vote.
             5. Make sure you are registered:
             6. Ann Harris Bennett, Tax Assessor-Collector & Voter Registrar
             7. CHECK REGISTRATION STATUS HERE
             8. CLICK How to register to vote in Texas
             9. Outside Texas, try Vote.org.
2. BE REGISTERED TO VOTE, and if eligible, REMEMBER TO FILL OUT AND MAIL NEW MAIL-IN BALLOT APPLICATIONS FOR 2023 AFTER JANUARY 1, 2023.
   
   1. You can track your Mail Ballot Activity from our website with direct link provided here https://www.harrisvotes.com/Tracking
3. CDC reports a new strain of omicron taking over in the U.S.; About 40% of confirmed U.S. Covid cases are caused by the XBB.1.5 strain, up from 20% a week ago. By Akshay Syal, M.D. | NBCNEWS.COM | Dec. 31, 2022, 7:07 AM CST
   1. A new version of omicron has taken hold in the U.S., according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The subvariant of omicron, named XBB.1.5, has raised concerns about another potential wave of Covid cases following the busy holiday travel season. 
   2. The CDC projected Friday that about 40% of confirmed U.S. Covid cases are caused by the XBB.1.5 strain, up from 20% a week ago. In the Northeast, about 75% of confirmed cases are reported to be XBB.1.5. 
   3. It’s not clear yet where this version of omicron came from, but it appears to be spreading quickly here. There’s no indication it causes more severe illness than any other omicron virus, Dr. Barbara Mahon, director of CDC’s Coronavirus and Other Respiratory Viruses Division, told NBC News. …
   4. “We’re seeing hospitalizations have been notching up overall across the country,” she said. “They don’t appear to be notching up more in the areas that have more XBB.1.5.” …
   5. [In the U.S., people] age 65 and older are the most vulnerable to any form of the Covid virus. Yet, only 37.5% of that age group has received the updated omicron booster, according to the most recent CDC data.
   6. The most important thing experts agree is to get a booster shot with the bivalent vaccines to bolster your immune system against the newer subvariants. 
   7. MIKE: I see three takeaways in this story:
      1. 1- The new variant might be slightly better able to evade antibodies in previously vaccinated or covid-positive individuals;
      2. 2- However, increased hospitalizations are not currently associated specifically with this new variant;
      3. 3- Being current in your covid vaccinations is still a great way to avoid being sick enough from covid to need hospitalization.
   8. MIKE: So remember this about vaccines — They don’t always prevent you from getting sick. Rather, they give your immune system a heads-up on how to fight a virus. Some folks may not get sick at all; some folks may experience symptoms of varying severity, from mild to severe. But vaccinated individuals are far less likely to need to go to the hospital or, worse, be put on a ventilator.
   9. MIKE: So the lessons are these —
      1. Be fully vaccinated. Be current in your vaccinations.
      2. Try to take the usual precautions of masking indoors, especially among crowds.
      3. Be diligent about handwashing. (ALWAYS a good idea!!)
         
      4. When out and about, where handwashing or using hand sanitizer can be challenging, be cognizant of not touching your face with your hands, especially your eyes, nose, and mouth.
   10. MIKE: These simple rules will help to keep you safe and healthy.
4. ‘You will not cut me out’: Lina Hidalgo blasts colleagues at county ceremony; The newly reelected judge took aim at her detractors during an impromptu speech Monday night. By Kennedy Sessions | CHRON.COM | Jan. 3, 2023, Updated: Jan. 3, 2023 12:54 p.m.
   1. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo offered terse remarks for her commissioners court colleagues during a swearing-in ceremony for elected county officials at the NRG Center on Monday, January 2. 
   2. According to the Houston Chronicle’s Jen Rice, Hidalgo delivered a spontaneous 10-minute speech calling out Texas Lieutenant Gov. Dan Patrick, her fellow county leaders and opponents of her 2022 reelection campaign. 
   3. “You will not cut me out,” Hidalgo said. “You will not beat me down; you will not tell me to sit down and shut up like Lieutenant Dan Patrick did.” 
   4. Hidalgo’s mention of the lieutenant was in reference to an incident that occurred in February 2022, where Patrick confronted the judge for standing with other state and county leaders at the funeral of slain Harris County Deputy Corporal Charles Galloway. During the encounter, the lieutenant governor told Hidalgo to “sit down and shut up” and accused her of defunding the police.
   5. During her Monday night remarks Hidalgo maintained that she prefers to continue working collaboratively with her colleagues on the high court. …
   6. ‘Sit down and shut up’: Lina Hidalgo’s office claims Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick berated her at police funeral; A spokesperson for the county judge says it’s not the first time Hidalgo has been confronted by the lieutenant governor for political reasons during an officer’s funeral. By Ariana Garcia | CHRON.COM | Feb. 4, 2022, Updated: Feb. 4, 2022 3:11 p.m.
      1. … The GOP leader took to Twitter to corroborate claims made in a video posted by the National Fraternal Order of Police that criticized Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo for where she chose to stand during a Tuesday memorial service for slain officer Corporal Charles Galloway. The Harris County Pct. 5 deputy was shot and killed during a traffic stop on Jan. 23.
      2. “This video is 100% accurate,” Patrick said in a tweet Thursday sharing the video. “I was there. What you’ll see is a shocking display of disruptive and disgraceful behavior by @LinaHidalgoTX during the funeral of a peace officer killed in the line of duty. She is unfit for office. The people deserve better.” …
      3. Former Houston Mayor Annise Parker also weighed in to defend Hidalgo, tweeting, “As the highest ranking Harris County official at the funeral of a slain Harris County public safety officer, Judge Hidalgo is expected—by long standing protocol—to be at the front of the ceremony as the representative of the county he served. Same old Dannie Goeb [Patrick].” …
   7. In the video, originally shared by Houston conservative radio talk show The Michael Berry Show, a sergeant identified by Fox 26 as Precinct 5 Sgt. Roy Guinnaccuses Hidalgo of disrespect for refusing to take a seat at the ceremony, despite his multiple requests. The footage captures Hidalgo standing next to Patrick and other officers at the service in front of a tent where Galloway’s family sat with other dignitaries. …
   8. MIKE: This seems to echo the story of Mitch McConnell insisting that Elizabeth Warren NOT read a letter from Coretta Scott King on the floor of the Senate. It became the meme, “Nevertheless, she persisted.”
   9. ANDREW: First off, Lina Hidalgo is NOT defunding the police, and I know that because I wish she was. The tax plan issue that was being batted back and forth between Hidalgo and former Precinct 4 Commissioner Jack Cagle last year showed that, because Hidalgo’s plan actually included MORE funding for police than Cagle’s plan did. So that’s just factually incorrect.
   10. ANDREW: Secondly, she was following protocol when she stood where she did. She probably didn’t disagree with the protocol, considering she doesn’t exactly seem to me to be very critical of police, but regardless of her political positions, there’s no evidence that she stood where she did with politics in mind. So, as usual, police and their conservative lapdogs are looking for opportunities to intimidate and character-assassinate their way to even more real and social power. My advice for us bystanders? Don’t listen to them, and you won’t give it to them.
   11. REFERENCE: ‘Nevertheless, she persisted’ becomes new battle cry after McConnell silences Elizabeth Warren; By Amy B Wang | WASHINGTONPOST.COM | February 8, 2017 at 9:34 a.m. EST
5. Almost two months after Election Day, Harris County still doesn’t know if polling site problems kept people from voting; Some sites opened late and reportedly ran out of paper in November, but the county says its investigation into the issues “has not yet revealed” whether anyone was turned away. by Natalia Contreras | VOTEBEAT and THE TEXAS TRIBUNE | Dec. 30, 2022, 3 PM Central
   1. … In a post-election assessment, which the county provided to Votebeat, Harris County Elections Administrator Clifford Tatum describes the result of the county’s investigation into Election Day problems, including ballot paper shortages, as “inconclusive.” The 54-page assessment, which came at least two weeks later than expected, says the elections office’s investigation “has not yet revealed” whether, or how many of, the county’s 782 polling sites had to turn voters away due to ballot paper shortages.
   2. To figure out the scope of the ballot paper problem, Tatum said he had to rely on “anecdotal” information his office received directly from calling more than 700 presiding judges and alternate judges because he does not have an adequate tracking system to help him see whether an issue at a polling place was addressed and resolved. …
   3. The assessment said some … presiding judges and alternate judges were “reportedly” advised by the Harris County Republican Party to not talk to election staff about the matter. The party is involved in at least two lawsuits against the county that allege paper shortages “disenfranchised” voters on Election Day. Harris County Republican Party chair Cindy Siegel, however, denied that the party advised election judges to not speak to elections staff. …
   4. [Tatum said he] “… can’t make any conclusions from what I got from the judges other than, they gave me conflicting information. The solution is for me to have systems in place that demonstrate what occurred.”
   5. Other large counties in Texas and across the country have for years been using this kind of tracking system. Experts say Harris is unusual among large jurisdictions in not having such tools.
   6. Elections administrators in Dallas and Tarrant counties use an effective system to track problems at polling sites in real time, which they say is essential to their operation. The systems can be purchased online and cost between $30,000 and $40,000 a year. …
   7. To prevent the same issues from happening again, Tatum told Votebeat he expects to have the tracking tools necessary by the May 6 election that will allow him to see what is happening at every polling site in real time.
   8. In his assessment, Tatum also details proposed actions to improve the operations of elections in Harris County. These include a review of the polling site opening and voting system set-up process, voting system software updates, additional full-time staff for the elections department and “sustained and dedicated administrative funding.”
   9. ANDREW: It does seem like Harris County should have a polling issue reporting and tracking system in place. I might speculate that the reason it doesn’t have that system is that Republicans didn’t want to spend the money on it, and Democrats didn’t want to push the issue. I wonder if there is enough time between now and the May 6th election to get it researched, purchased, and set up, assuming the funding for it gets approved.
6. Preliminary FEMA flood map, online dashboard release expected in 2023; By Rachel Carlton | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 11:49 AM Dec 30, 2022 CST, Updated 11:49 AM Dec 30, 2022 CST
   1. The Federal Emergency Management Agency will release Harris County’s preliminary flood insurance rate maps sometime in 2023, according to Harris County Flood Control District officials. …
   2. Federal law requires FEMA to assess if flood maps need to be revised or updated at least every five years. Local flood control entities partner with FEMA to provide information for those maps, which show flood risk and mandate the purchase of flood insurance in high-risk areas. …
   3. MAAPnext [Modeling, Assessment and Awareness Project] uses updated rainfall and topographic data to create more comprehensive maps than the ones available during recent major storms. …
   4. [HCFCD Planning Division Director Ataul Hannan said,] “It’s not a regulatory map [designating] 100-year or 300-year [flood zones], but we are showing the local flooding [not] from an insurance point of view.”
   5. Officials said MAAPnext’s dashboard will complement the release of FEMA’s maps. A process will then begin to revise the maps before they become official in late 2024 or 2025.
   6. ANDREW: So the FEMA map will be useful for figuring out how much you’ll have to pay for insurance, and the MAAPnext map will be useful for figuring out what streets will be too flooded to drive on and whether you need to evacuate. Do I have that right?
   7. MIKE: That’s my understanding. Whether the final, final map is used for insurances purposes, we’ll have to see. But I’m betting it will be.
7. FDA to permit some retail pharmacies to dispense abortion pills; The change may make medication abortion more accessible in states where it is legal. By Frances Stead Sellers and Rachel Roubein | WASHINGTONPOST.COM | Updated January 3, 2023 at 10:15 p.m. EST, Published January 3, 2023 at 9:05 p.m. EST
   1. The Food and Drug Administration took steps Tuesday to ease access to medication abortion in states where it is legal, allowing retail pharmacies to dispense the pills, which previously were available only at clinics, directly from doctors or by mail.
   2. The regulatory change, which was released with little fanfare or explanation Tuesday night, appeared to reflect the Biden administration’s desire to deliver on its vow to keep abortion accessible after the Supreme Court’s June decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion.
   3. The FDA [cemented] a pandemic-era change that expanded telehealth access to the procedure. The agency also indicated that it would allow certain pharmacies to dispense abortion pills directly, rather than requiring patients to pick them up from a health-care facility or wait for them to come in the mail from a handful of mail-order pharmacies.
   4. Under the new rules, patients will still need a prescription from a certified health-care provider, but any pharmacy that agrees to accept those prescriptions and abide by other criteria can dispense the pills in its stores and by mail. …
   5. Medication abortions have become increasingly common since the FDA approved mifepristone more than two decades ago … [T]he pills have become the latest battleground over abortion, as conservative states take steps to make it more difficult to access the medication.
   6. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists — which has long advocated for retail pharmacies to dispense the drug — called it an “important step forward in securing access to medication abortion.” …
   7. Some abortion rights advocates, however, said the impact of the change remains unclear, including how many brick-and-mortar stores will choose to take advantage of it. …
   8. [A] spokeswoman for CVS, said in an email Tuesday that the company is “reviewing the FDA’s updated Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) drug safety program certification requirements for mifepristone to determine the requirements to dispense in states that do not restrict the dispensing of medications prescribed for elective termination of pregnancy.”
   9. [A] spokesman for Walgreens, said the company is also reviewing the changes. …
   10. Top medical groups — like the American Medical Association and American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists — consider the drug to be safe and effective.
   11. ANDREW: This is obviously good for people who still have legal access to abortion, but it might also help people in states where it isn’t legal too. I could see a situation where someone living near a state border can cross over, visit a pharmacy where they can get their abortion pills, and head home within a day. Not groundbreaking for everyone in that state, but helpful for some.
8. Property tax revision, judicial branch expansion among new Texas laws that took effect Jan. 1; While the Legislature will soon start its new session, some laws passed in 2021 are just now taking effect. by Zach Despart | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | Jan. 2, 2023, 23 hours ago.
   1. Several laws passed in the 2021 Texas legislative sessions laws took effect Jan. 1 …
   2. Senate Bill 12, written by Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, limits the amount of property taxes a school district can levy on the homestead of an elderly or disabled person, according to a bill analysis by the Senate Research Center. To ensure that districts are not burdened by a decrease in revenue, the law makes districts eligible for additional state aid. …
   3. House Bill 3774, authored by Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, includes several reforms to the judicial branch. [It creates a number of new courts and adjusts numerous jurisdictional boundaries. It also] provides public access to the state court document database — if the state Supreme Court agrees. …
   4. Among other housekeeping provisions, the law requires that the protective order registry include protective orders for victims of sexual assault or abuse, stalking or trafficking and mandates the removal of certain vacated orders from the registry. …
   5. Senate Bill 1210, written by Sen. Nathan Johnson, D-Dallas, and Bettencourt, requires that building codes allow the use of refrigerants, a component of air conditioning units, other than hydrofluorocarbons, so long as they comply with the federal Clean Air Act. This law is in line with a movement in the United States and around the world to phase out the use of hydrofluorocarbons, chemical compounds of hydrogen, carbon and fluorine that erode the ozone layer and contribute to global warming. A Senate Research Center analysis of the law noted that a leading industry group, the Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute, supported the legislation. Major Texas manufacturers including Goodman and Chemours also supported it, the analysis found. The analysis said the transition away from hydrofluorocarbons includes ramping up the manufacturing of air conditioners that use other types of coolants, many of which can be manufactured in Texas.
   6. “Overall, the transition is expected to create 33,000 new manufacturing jobs and sustain more than 138,000 existing manufacturing jobs nationwide,” the analysis noted. “A large proportion of these jobs will be in Texas, already a major manufacturing hub for these products.”
   7. The new 88th legislative session begins Jan. 10.
   8. Andrew: The way this article was written, it almost sounded like HB3774 was allowing public access to protective orders, which would be worrying if it made the personal information of people under these orders publicly accessible information. So I did some research, and for anyone who didn’t know, the protective order registry is a different system than the state court document database. So protective orders are not going to be any less secure under this law.
   9. Andrew: In fact, the public can currently request access to redacted copies of some protective orders if they can provide a good reason, which I suspect may be the same approach taken with opening up the state court document database. That system will undoubtedly have its own sensitive information, so while the public may be able to get access to it, I’d be surprised if there wasn’t some censoring for the protection of the people in those documents.
9. MIKE: You’ve probably heard a lot of the stories about confederate statues being removed around the country. The following article is a fascinating look at the story behind that story.
10. White contractors wouldn’t remove Confederate statues. So a Black man did it.; By Gregory S. Schneider | WASHINGTONPOST.COM | January 2, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EST
    1. Workers in bright yellow vests circled up in the morning chill. Some clutched cups of Starbucks coffee, a last comfort before beginning the hard work of dismantling a statue of Confederate A.P. Hill in the middle of an intersection.
    2. As a small group of Confederate heritage defenders assembled nearby — at least one of them armed — city safety coordinator Miles Jones lectured the work crew on wearing hard hats and eye protection. And who, he asked, would be the site supervisor? A bearded man in Ray-Ban sunglasses and a Norfolk State University sweatshirt stepped forward.
    3. “What’s your name, sir?” Jones asked.
    4. “Devon Henry.”
    5. “Devon Hen—” Jones began, then dropped his voice respectfully. “Oh, Mr. Henry. Of course.”
    6. The name carries weight in Richmond these days. Over the past three years, as the former capital of the Confederacy has taken down more than a dozen monuments to the Lost Cause, Henry — who is Black — has overseen all the work.
    7. He didn’t seek the job. He had never paid much attention to Civil War history. City and state officials said they turned to Team Henry Enterprises after a long list of bigger contractors — all White-owned — said they wanted no part of taking down Confederate statues.
    8. For a Black man to step in carried enormous risk. Henry concealed the name of his company for a time and long shunned media interviews. He has endured death threats, seen employees walk away and been told by others in the industry that his future is ruined. He started wearing a bulletproof vest on job sites and got a permit to carry a concealed firearm for protection.
    9. The drama interrupted Henry’s careful efforts to build his business. But after removing 24 monuments in Virginia and North Carolina, Henry, 45, has grown more comfortable with his role in enabling a historic reckoning with social injustice across the South. The threats haven’t let up; Henry has simply learned to live with them. …
    10. Over and over, history-minded friends directed Henry to the words of John Mitchell Jr., the civil rights pioneer and editor of the Richmond Planet, a groundbreaking African American newspaper. In 1890, the year the state erected an enormous statue of Robert E. Lee on what would become Monument Avenue, Mitchell wrote about the resilience of the Black person in society.
    11. “The Negro … put up the Lee monument,” Mitchell wrote, “and should the time come, will be there to take it down.” …
    12. Partly in reaction to the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017, the General Assembly had passed a bill early in 2020 to allow localities to take down Confederate statues. That May, the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police touched off nationwide racial justice protests that in Richmond focused on Monument Avenue and its iconic memorials.
    13. [Then-Gov. Ralph] Northam, a Democrat, decided it was time to act. Protesters and police were clashing every night. He wanted to move fast. …
    14. Clark Mercer, the chief of staff for [Northam,] confessed that he was reaching out [to Henry] because he was desperate. Everyone else had turned him down.
    15. “I was pretty forthcoming that we hadn’t been able to find anybody to take on the job,” Mercer said in an interview. In fact, the responses from other contractors were “pretty overtly racist,” he said, including language that he found threatening. “Devon seemed to understand the magnitude of what I was asking him.” …
    16. [I]n early 2020, one particular job transformed [Henry’s] outlook about what was possible: Team Henry was the general contractor for construction of the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at the University of Virginia. …
    17. Participating in something like that “gives you purpose, and meaning for your work,” [Henry] said.
    18. So when Mercer called to pitch him on taking down a Confederate monument, Henry viewed it differently than he might have before.
    19. He had come to understand that those statues — especially Lee — were like religious objects to their defenders. They had stood more than a century as totems of a powerful mythology: that slavery was somehow benign, that Southerners were the noble victims of Northern aggression, that things were better when White people presided over an orderly world. The Lost Cause.
    20. For a Black man to destroy such a symbol would put his life, his family, his livelihood on the line. Henry knew that in Louisiana, a White contractor withdrew from the job of removing four Confederate monuments after receiving death threats. Someone torched the man’s car. …
    21. Within just a few weeks, though, Henry got another call. Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney wanted to take down a whole series of monuments on city property. Bob Steidel, a deputy city administrator tasked with making it happen, had run into the same problem as Mercer trying to find a contractor. Then someone with the state suggested Henry.
    22. “He was the only one to step up, and I give him all respect for that because in June of 2020 it was a difficult decision to be made,” Steidel said in an interview. “Personally, professionally — he had everything at stake, and he still did it.” …
    23. On July 1, 2020, the first target — a statue of Gen. Stonewall Jackson at an intersection along Monument Avenue — came down amid chaos on a cinematic scale….
    24. Over the next few weeks, Henry and his team moved on to dismantle more than a dozen other monuments around Richmond under a $1.8 million umbrella contract. …
    25. He removed the statues of Lee and Jackson in Charlottesville that had been the focus of the white-supremacist rally. He took down a statue of Jackson at Virginia Military Institute … He was invited to remove a statue in Shreveport, La., Henry said, but declined because the work included reinstalling the monument on a battlefield. …
    26. Fielding threats became routine, from racial slurs shouted by passing vehicles to menacing voice mails. Henry referred all those to the police, who had eventually become close partners. …
    27. All the while, Henry was planning for the big one — the huge statue of Lee on state-owned property. The Supreme Court of Virginia cleared away the last legal challenge, and work was set for Sept. 8, 2021. …
    28. Henry rode a bucket truck up alongside the statue as his crew, now experts at this kind of work, quickly removed the bolts that secured it to the base. Henry actually slowed the process for a few moments; he needed to give Northam time to get there from the State Capitol.
    29. Suddenly, Henry felt overcome with emotion. He thought about Jimmy Palmer, a rigger with the crane company who had become a close friend but died of cancer before he could help bring Lee down. He thought about all the elderly Black people who had told him they never thought they’d see this day. And about how they thanked him for fulfilling Mitchell’s vision.
    30. “It hit me like a bag of rocks,” he said. He told the bucket truck operator to take him down. “I just started crying.”
    31. The statue was hoisted off its pedestal in less than an hour after 131 years of towering over Richmond’s grandest street. …
    32. ANDREW: This is an extremely important story. It shows that as with all oppression, it is the oppressed themselves that free themselves, and in this case it’s a very literal example: Black people literally deconstructing a monument to the oppression they face. A white governor helped make it happen, but it wouldn’t have happened without Devon Henry and his team.
    33. ANDREW: It’s also important as a reminder that racism doesn’t just go away when you can’t see it anymore. That statue is gone, but the protestors will go back to their homes and keep reinforcing the racism of anyone who chooses to listen. The work is not done. Statues will still need to come down, laws and policies will still need to be changed, and people will still need to find the racism that has been placed in all of us by the society we grew up in and choose to say “I will not let this prejudice sneak into my thoughts, words, or actions. I will confront and reject it wherever it shows up, inside of me or out in the world.” If we all at least do that, we can all help Black people liberate themselves from racism.
11. ‘A sea change’: Biden reverses decades of Chinese trade policy; Forget tariffs. Biden’s actions to crack down on Beijing’s tech development will do more to hinder the Chinese economy — and divide the two nations — than Trump ever did. By Gavin Bade | POLITICO.COM | 12/26/2022 07:00 AM EST
    1. After decades of U.S. efforts to engage China with the prospect of greater development through trade, the era of cooperation is coming to a screeching halt.
    2. The White House and Congress are quietly reshaping the American economic relationship with the world’s second-largest economic power, enacting a strategy to limit China’s technological development that breaks with decades of federal policy and represents the most aggressive American action yet to curtail Beijing’s economic and military rise.
    3. The new federal rules, executive orders and pending legislation aimed at China’s high-tech sectors, which began this fall and will continue in 2023, are the culmination of years of debate spanning three administrations. Taken together, they represent an escalation of former President Donald Trump’s tariffs and trade disputes against Beijing that could ultimately do more to slow Chinese technological and economic development — and divide the two economies — than anything the 45th president did while in office.
    4. “You really have seen a sea change in the way that they’re looking at the relationship with China,” said Clete Willems, who helped design China economic policy in the Trump White House as Deputy Assistant to the President for International Economics and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council. “[The Biden] administration views Chinese indigenous innovation as a per se national security threat … and that is a big leap from where we’ve ever been before.”
    5. The new strategy, which the Biden administration internally calls its “protect agenda,” is being rolled out this fall and winter in a series of executive actions. In October, the Commerce Department issued new rules aimed at cutting off Chinese firms’ ability to manufacture advanced computer chips. They will soon be followed by an executive order creating new federal authority to regulate U.S. investments in China — the first time the federal government will exert such power over American industry – and an executive order to limit the ability of Chinese apps like TikTok to collect data from Americans.
    6. Congress is participating as well, drafting its own, bipartisan versions of Chinese investment screening, potential rules on American capital flows into China, and restrictions on TikTok and other apps that hawks hope can be passed next Congress.
    7. Those initiatives come on the heels of Biden’s “promote” agenda — using the government to promote American competitiveness. That involved the approval of hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies for domestic manufacturing in the CHIPS for America Act and Inflation Reduction Act last summer, focused on breaking U.S. reliance on China, and new rules against U.S. companies working with Chinese chipmakers.
    8. Taken together, the “protect” and “promote” agendas represent a fundamental rethinking in the American government’s approach to China’s technological advancement and, ultimately, its economic development. While American policymakers were previously content to manage China’s technological growth and make sure it stayed a few generations behind the U.S., security officials now seek to bring Beijing’s development – particularly in chips and computing, but soon in other sectors — closer to a standstill. …
    9. “It’s not an exaggeration to say this is a Biden doctrine of technology policy toward China,” said Eric Sayers, a former staffer for the U.S. Pacific Command during the Trump administration. “More than an escalation, it’s a grand departure from a three-decade strategy.” …
    10. Those who want a tougher stance toward Beijing point out that the total amount of trade between the nations boomed through the pandemic, feeding a record trade deficit between the countries. Those China hawks, including some Trump administration veterans, say that Beijing’s control over the Chinese economy is so complete that the only way to ensure that American commerce does not assist Chinese military development is to push for less trade between the countries, particularly in high-tech and defense-related sectors.
    11. “I think we have to start the process of strategic decoupling,” said Robert Lighthizer, Trump’s former trade chief and a longtime China hawk, who commended Biden’s recent tech actions against China but urged him to pursue broader efforts to reduce U.S. reliance on the Chinese economy.
    12. “Once you decide [China’s] a foe, you have to start the process of stopping the shipment of hundreds of billions of dollars each year that they’re using to rebuild their military,” he said, referring to record trade deficits with China following the pandemic.
    13. While the Biden administration rejects those calls rhetorically, it also acknowledges that the protect agenda will soon spread to other major sectors of the Chinese economy. In particular, Sullivan has highlighted biotechnology and clean energy as two industries where the U.S. must not let China take the lead. But White House policymakers say those actions will be “carefully tailored” to affect only high-end, strategic products, and not cut off everyday commerce. …
    14. [T]he new scrutiny on U.S.-China commerce has free traders — now on the sidelines after decades of policymaking [sic] dominance — fearful of a gradual slide into a new Cold War stance against China, one where any cooperation between the nations could be assailed as assisting the ruling Communist Party. …
    15. The new initiatives to curtail Chinese tech firms represent a shift from the optimistic stance toward technological development that defined American policy for decades.
    16. Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. had largely treated development — whether technological or economic — largely as a good in itself. As poor nations absorbed investment from the industrialized world, the argument went, they would “move up the value chain,” developing more sophisticated industries. That would boost incomes, build middle-class citizens, and ultimately lead to democratic reforms and peace between trading partners.
    17. Those assumptions meant that the U.S. was content to let the development of many technologies — even some critical to national security, like semiconductors — move to other nations. If most high-end computer chips ended up being manufactured elsewhere, that was acceptable, or even desirable. Such was the logic of comparative advantage and the capitalist peace theory.
    18. But China’s slide back to authoritarianism threw a wrench into that narrative. …
    19. ANDREW: We’ve talked about this before. I’m not against policy that aims to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US. I think the US economy has heavily relied on jobs that don’t actually contribute anything to anyone except grease the wheels of profit, and bringing useful jobs like manufacturing and farming and similar sectors back to the US will help lower prices for the average US consumer, which is good. They also would be more important economically, giving the workers in those jobs more leverage should they decide to organize industrially, boosting labor power.
    20. ANDREW: But to couple that policy with policy that– quote– “decides China’s a foe”, unquote, and aims to punish China for the unforgivable crime of– gasp– providing products that are in demand so that the resources a reasonable government needs to do its actual job of taking care of its citizens can be collected and then distributed, that’s not only ridiculous, unfair, and cruel, it’s also dangerous. It takes two to cooperate, but it only takes one to start a war, and that’s the path that you go down when you start thinking of geopolitics as “friends” and “foes”. A multipolar world is a more fair and just world, and seeing geopolitics as a game to win is fundamentally incompatible with multipolarism. Cooperation is so often easier and more practical than competition, but when a country builds a political system and identity on self-reliance and superiority, like the US has, the easier and more practical route becomes a lot harder to sell. I just hope it doesn’t become a harder sell than launching nuclear weapons.
    21. ANDREW: As an aside, I also think it’s very arrogant for US officials to think they can halt the technological progress of another sovereign nation. Whatever the US refuses to sell to China, China will be able to source from somewhere else. The same would happen if the situation were reversed. Because alliances aren’t always out in the open, and smugglers will always be willing to take big risks for big rewards. And even if the supplies are cut off, look at Cuba, who have been enduring a US-imposed blockade of trade embargoes for decades now, and are actually looking more stable than some US allies– Liz Truss’ UK comes to mind.

 

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