AUDIO:

POSSIBLE TOPICS: VOTETEXAS.GOV—Voter Information; REGISTER TO VOTE; APPLY FOR MAIL-IN BALLOT; Montgomery County Precinct 3 proposes 20-mph speed limit on The Woodlands residential roads; Where Texas redistricting lawsuits stand after U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Alabama case; Travel encounters show how US treats Puerto Ricans as ‘second-class citizens’; US halts online asylum appointments at Texas crossing after extortion warnings; Thread on the Nova Kakhovka Dam; ‘We can rebuild’: Ukrainian mayor sees opportunity amid dam chaos; Long-sought universal flu vaccine: mRNA-based candidate enters clinical trial; More.

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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. Obtain a Voter Registration Application (HarrisVotes.com)
   3. Harris County “Vote-By-Mail’ Application for 2022
      1. Austin County Elections
      2. Brazoria County (TX) Clerk Election Information
      3. Chambers County (TX) Elections
      4. Colorado County (TX) Elections
      5. Fort Bend County takes you to the proper link
      6. GalvestonVotes.org (Galveston County, TX)
      7. Harris County ((HarrisVotes.com)
      8. LibertyElections (Liberty County, TX)
      9. Montgomery County (TX) Elections
      10. Walker County Elections
      11. Waller County (TX) Elections
      12. Wharton County Elections
   4. 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.
   5. 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.
   6. 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.
   1. Obtain a Voter Registration Application (HarrisVotes.com)
   2. Just be registered and apply for your mail-in ballot if you may qualify.
   3. You can track your Mail Ballot Activity from our website with direct link provided here https://www.harrisvotes.com/Tracking
3. MIKE — From HARRISVOTES.COM: Remember what I recently said about stealth elections? Well, I missed one.
   1. There was a June 10 Runoff Elections for City of Pasadena Council Districts A and G. I’d be curious to know that a runoff election was being held in 2 of Pasadena’s council districts.
   2. MIKE: I hate “stealth elections”. If we had universal mail-in ballots, people living in even small districts with elections would at least know that there IS an election.
4. Montgomery County Precinct 3 proposes 20-mph speed limit on The Woodlands residential roads; By Jessica Shorten | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 2:49 PM Jun 12, 2023 CDT, Updated 2:49 PM Jun 12, 2023 CDT
   1. … Currently, a number of residential roads are set at 25-30 mph in residential areas. This would affect not just the residential roads in Precinct 3 areas of The Woodlands, but Precinct 2 areas as well.
   2. “Reducing the residential speed limit will better protect our most vulnerable—children, pedestrians, bicyclists, the elderly, and pets,” [Montgomery County Precinct 3 Commissioner James Noack] said in a news release. “As Precinct 3 makes progress improving mobility and reducing the stress for commuters on our arterial roadways, we also want to ensure peaceful neighborhood streets where walkers and riders can blend in harmony.”
   3. Montgomery County Precinct 3 Constable Ryan Gable … also voiced support for the change in the news release.
   4. “Due to the dense population and the incredible growth of our county, it is constant during peak traffic hours for cars to take shortcuts through our residential streets; and my office is having to field speeding complaints, just about daily from concerned citizens living in our Precinct 3 neighborhoods,” Gable said.
   5. MIKE: I almost always have a bigger picture in mind when I find these hyperlocal stories. This will get rather tangential.
   6. MIKE: First, a comment on The Woodlands. The Woodlands was developed with what I think were referred to at the time as modernized building rules to make homes more affordable. What that meant in practice was narrower streets, so that builders could build on more of the available land. What that meant in actual terms, as far as I could tell at the time, was residential streets that were barely 3-lanes wide instead of four.
   7. MIKE: In fully developed Houston neighborhoods with streets and sidewalks, the streets are usually 4-lanes wide: 1 lane on each side for parking and 1 lane each way for driving. In The Woodlands, the residential streets are reported to be between 22-24 ft wide, which is closer to 2-1/2 lanes wide. That may be the case for the Montgomery County streets being discussed.
   8. MIKE: On such narrow streets, where emergencies like a kid following a stray ball can arise suddenly, with no room for maneuver, a 20-mph speed limit makes sense. That’s about the speed I drive in the Heights where we often have 2-lane blacktop roads and dirt shoulders with ditches. Driving at 20-mph is annoying, but necessary.
   9. MIKE: But here’s I found irony in Noack’s statement: “As Precinct 3 makes progress improving mobility and reducing the stress for commuters on our arterial roadways, we also want to ensure peaceful neighborhood streets where walkers and riders can blend in harmony.”
   10. MIKE: In Houston, we’re doing the reverse. We’re reducing mobility and increasing commuter stress on arterial roadways. Instead, we’re eliminating lanes of auto traffic for bicycle lanes (and sometimes, light rail lanes), and pushing cars onto residential streets where they can conflict with walkers and cyclists.
   11. MIKE: Then we patch that problem on residential streets with speed bumps, which are both unpleasant and hard on car and truck suspensions, not to mention the people and goods inside those cars and trucks. And then there’s the question of how emergency vehicles will rapidly travel streets that are jammed because lanes have been removed, not to mention the impediment created by speed bumps on emergency vehicles.
   12. MIKE: I’m somewhat influenced in my views as an old car guy and, frankly, an old guy. When I hear the words, “Walkable city,” I immediately think of back and leg pain, and mass transit in Houston is mostly still not an option for many folks if cars no longer are.
   13. ANDREW: I think I have a little bit of an unfair advantage in this discussion for once, as I had the opportunity a while back to pose some of Mike’s arguments on “walkable cities” and non-car infrastructure in general to a bunch of transit enthusiasts. There’s a link to that discussion on the blog at com, but I’ll pick some of the points from that discussion that are useful here.
   14. ANDREW: Reducing lanes doesn’t uniquely increase traffic, because for car infrastructure (and in fact all forms of transit), demand increases to meet supply. The more lanes there are, the more traffic there is, and the more congestion there is. Houston has an extensive road network, yet we’re already known for horrible traffic. Emergency vehicles have to deal with that traffic already; it’s not going to get worse because we have some bike lanes. Having more roads and road space hasn’t made traffic better so far, and it’s not going to suddenly start now.
   15. ANDREW: The good news is that when we provide more alternatives to driving, people see that those get you to your destination faster because you don’t have to battle traffic, so they start using alternatives instead, meaning less drivers, meaning less traffic, meaning roads improve. That’s how you relieve congestion on roads, which by the way, would still exist! “Walkable city” means “you CAN walk”, not “you MUST walk”. It’s also worth pointing out that many disabled people can’t drive, and having few or no alternatives severely limits their mobility. More alternatives to cars make cities more accessible, not less.
   16. ANDREW: And yes, sometimes when you introduce new public transit, you need to push people out of their cars (figuratively speaking). Regulations like the one discussed in this article, lowering speed limits in residential areas, can help do that, but Montgomery County should make sure there are good public transit options to push people into if they adopt this change.
   17. MIKE: I’ve spent 45 years in Houston. In 1977, the population of Metro Houston was about 2.2 million. In 2023, it’s tripled to about 6.7 million.
   18. MIKE: I just want to add a comment in response to Andrew. One can argue that building roads just increases traffic because “demand grows to meet supply”. But it’s worth noting that road construction, like most infrastructure construction, is not predictive. It’s mostly pre Roads are built to solve traffic problems, with some additional capacity added to allow time for planning, funding and construction. Mass transit in “new” cities like Houston and LA will always be more problematic than in “old” cities like NY and Boston.
   19. REFERENCE: County Commissioners set to Consider Street Width Variance for Local Developer — WORDPRESS.COM | Nov. 5, 2022
5. Where Texas redistricting lawsuits stand after U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Alabama case; The high court left intact a key provision of the federal Voting Rights Act in a case many feared would go the other way. The decision’s importance in ongoing litigation over Texas’ political maps will largely be felt in what didn’t happen. By Alexa Ura | THE TEXAS TRIBUNE via HOUSTONPUBLICMEDIA.ORG | Posted on June 13, 2023, 11:00 AM (Last Updated: June 13, 2023, 12:01 PM)
   1. Breaking from a recent pattern of weakening protections for voters of color, the U.S. Supreme Court last week left intact a key portion of the federal Voting Rights Act. The decision’s importance in ongoing litigation over the political maps Texas drew in 2021 will largely be felt in what didn’t happen.
   2. In a 5-4 decision on a redistricting case out of Alabama, the court reaffirmed the constitutionality of a section of the federal law that prohibits voting practices that discriminate on the basis of race. The case against Texas lawmakers’ 2021 redistricting work is built on that provision. …
   3. The Texas redistricting case is actually a set of consolidated lawsuits brought by individual Texans, organizations that represent Texans of color, the Texas NAACP and the U.S. Department of Justice, among others, who claim the Texas Legislature discriminated against voters of color in its 2021 map drawing.
   4. The updated maps were meant to reflect the explosive growth captured in the 2020 census, almost all of it driven by Texans of color. But the Republican-drawn maps largely serve to bolster the party’s dominance, giving white voters even greater control of political districts throughout the state.
   5. The state faces an assortment of legal challenges to its congressional and statehouse maps, including allegations of intentional discrimination, vote dilution and racial gerrymandering. …
   6. Republican lawmakers and attorneys representing the state in court have denied that their work ran afoul of the Voting Rights Act or constitutional protections against discrimination. …
   7. The high court ruled last week that Alabama had diluted the voting strength of Black voters in redrawing its congressional map and required that it draw the districts again, giving Black voters a real chance of securing a second district in which they have the opportunity to elect their representatives.
   8. More significantly outside of Alabama, the majority of the court spared what’s known as Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Court observers and voting rights advocates feared the case would go the other way, but the court opted to preserve the status quo on voting rights litigation a decade after its ruling in another case out of Alabama, known as Shelby County v. Holder, gutted a core principle of the landmark civil rights law. …
   9. While the pathway to challenging voting laws in federal court has been narrowed as the law has been weakened, voters have found a way forward through Section 2, which prohibits any voting practice or procedure that “results in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race.” Violations of the law occur when, “based on the totality of circumstances,” groups of voters of color have less opportunity to participate in the political process or to elect representatives of their choice.
   10. Texas has repeatedly run afoul of protections for voters of color in the past.
   11. In a majority opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court leaned on precedent to reject Alabama’s argument that Section 2 is unconstitutional because it places too much emphasis on race. Alabama’s various arguments, including a pitch for race-neutral tests, could have radically changed how Section 2 claims are litigated. …
   12. MIKE: There’s a story about Franklin Roosevelt and his unhappiness with Supreme Court rulings on his New Deal legislation. He came up with what was technically called the “Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937”, which came to be coined The Court-Packing Plan. You can read about it at the link I’ve provided, but the long and short is that at the end of the day, FDR didn’t get to add more Justices, but the Court seemed to become more amenable to his New Deal legislation. Coincidence? Some think not.
   13. MIKE: While I don’t want to get too far ahead of history, maybe all the uproar about Supreme Court ethics and transparency is having just enough impact on just enough Justices to make them moderate their opinions a bit more? As The Shadow used to ask, “”Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?” Well, The Shadow said he did. I don’t claim such powers.
   14. ANDREW: Claiming the Voting Rights Act places too much emphasis on race is like claiming a budget bill places too much emphasis on spending. It’s the whole point. I’m relieved that this court didn’t find a reason to hand Republicans a win on this one.
6. Travel encounters show how US treats Puerto Ricans as ‘second-class citizens’; Prejudice abounds in spate of Puerto Ricans being denied services in contiguous US despite being American citizens. By Ramon Antonio Vargas | THEGUARDIAN.COM | Sun 11 Jun 2023 06.00 EDT
   1. They were denied prepaid car rentals, blocked from buying drinks at a grocery, and prohibited from boarding their flight in different parts of the US.
   2. All were from Puerto Rico, whose residents have been American citizens since 1917. But all were recently mistaken for international travelers lacking proper identification and denied services for which they had already paid, highlighting the prejudice that people from the largely Spanish-speaking island – and Spanish speakers in general – face in the US.
   3. Blanca Anderson, a retired college professor who taught on Puerto Rican identity, said she believes the problem began when many Americans either failed to teach or learn that the US gained control of the island by invading it in 1898 during the Spanish-American war.
   4. Amid the first world war, the US enacted a law which gave Puerto Ricans US citizenship (and the American military about 20,000 more troops). Puerto Rico has remained a commonwealth but did not become a state.
   5. Over the years, those facts have been forgotten or ignored. To many Americans, Spanish-speaking people from Puerto Rico are indistinguishable from Latinos with descendants from foreign countries south of the border, Anderson said. “It’s ignorance – they don’t know their history,” said Anderson … “Everyone who is Latino is looked at the same, even though we’re not.” …
   6. [It was] no surprise to [Anderson] when she heard the father of a student at the university where she once taught met with trouble at the Hertz desk at New Orleans’s airport. The incident happened in May when he tried to pick up a reservation with a Puerto Rican driver’s license.
   7. The clerk refused to honor the reservation for which Humberto Marchand, a retired federal probation officer, had already paid. The clerk insisted that he was foreign and needed to present a valid passport.
   8. When Marchand remarked repeatedly that he had “a valid ID”, the clerk called a police officer who made Marchand leave, telling him that if he didn’t, he would face arrest for creating a disturbance. The police department which employs the officer launched a disciplinary investigation into his tone and manner during the confrontation with Marchand, though the agency has not announced the results.
   9. Around the time Marchand’s story went viral, there also came word that Francisco Melendez had a similar experience at an Avis rental car office near Dallas. The clerk there refused to let him use his Puerto Rico driver’s license to collect his reservation and instead demanded a passport.
   10. There was also Spirit Airlines’ blocking Marivi Roman Torres, her husband Luis and their two-year-old son Alejandro from boarding a flight to visit family in Puerto Rico because the parents didn’t have a passport for their toddler. The Roman family had no problem getting replacement plane tickets from JetBlue, albeit at a higher price.
   11. Another case which raised eyebrows was that of military veteran Ricardo Florit, who went to a Kroger in Savannah, Georgia, and tried to use a Puerto Rican ID to pay for a $160 grocery run which included a bottle of wine and a beer. The clerk insisted on a passport, saying his store “used to accept” Puerto Rican licenses but no longer did. …
   12. [I]he reality is [that] wherever [Puerto Ricans] move around the United States with a valid Puerto Rico driver’s license, they are domestic travelers. And whoever has a driver’s license from Puerto Rico and is moving around the United States has a legal ID to show.” …
7. MIKE: This is one side of the coin for residents of or from US territories or commonwealths. American Samoa is another side of that coin.
   1. Millions of Americans can’t vote for president because of where they live; By Maria Murriel | THEWORLD.ORG | November 1, 2016 · 2:45 PM EDT — …People born in Guam, the Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and Puerto Rico are all [American citizens]. They vote in US congressional elections and presidential primaries. This year, voting rights advocate and lawyer Neil Weare says they were “even heavily courted by both parties … they went to the [Democratic and Republican] conventions. But Americans born in these territories can’t vote for president. Not unless they move to the mainland. … Like other territory residents, American Samoans can vote in US primaries but not for presidents. But they can’t do what millions of Puerto Ricans have been doing: relocate to the mainland permanently like a person would move from state to state. That’s because American Samoans, unlike other territory residents, are not [US] citizens. [They are US Nationals.] (Check out this article for more on American Samoans’ quest for citizenship.) If they want to move to a US state or Washington, DC, they have to go through an immigration process similar to that for people from other countries. They have to become naturalized. Naturalization costs almost $700 in fees and includes a test of the English language, US history and civics.”
   2. ANDREW: The legal situation for residents of US territories is terrible. None of them are fully enfranchised, even the ones who have US citizenship, because they can’t vote for the President and their Congressional representatives don’t have the right to vote on legislation.
   3. ANDREW: As we saw with the response to Hurricane Maria in 2017, the federal government often treats these territories as an afterthought, but as we’ve seen with the Financial Oversight Board for Puerto Rico, the federal government exercising power over these territories is very much top-of-mind. And as this article illustrates, the folks who come from these territories are treated on the mainland as second-class citizens, if any class of citizen at all.
   4. ANDREW: These are just some of the reasons that I believe that independence movements in these territories are completely justified, but until those movements’ aims are realized, the least that Congress could do would be to make all territorial residents on par with every other US citizen. Give them the same naturalization at birth, give their representatives voting power, and let them elect the President. If they had a little more influence, they might be able to command a little more of the respect they deserve.
   5. MIKE: The post-hurricane treatment of Puerto Rico was shameful and scandalous, but to be fair, that’s mostly because we had an ignorant and racist president in power at the time. There have been independence and statehood referenda in Puerto Rico. After some research, I can’t find anything to that effect for other US territories, but there have been periodic debates within the possessions. There is an interesting opinion piece called The Case For Five New States that I found on a site called NET. If you’re interested, I suggest reading it and forming your own conclusions.
   6. MIKE: As far as I know, the biggest advantage to being a US territory vs. being a state, besides being protected by the US defense umbrella, is that they pay no income taxes. The story I’ve referenced about American Samoa is that they don’t want to sacrifice their culture to have statehood (this link goes to a Wikipedia article), but its situation is rather more complicated.
   7. I would like to see US territories become states if that’s their wish, but they don’t seem to have internal agreement on that score.
   8. REFERENCE: Bill to resolve Puerto Rico’s territorial status reintroduced in the House — COM, April 20, 2023
   9. REFERENCE: Constitutional Citizenship in the U.S. Territories; By Irina Manta, Cassandra Burke Robertson | LAWFAREBLOG.COM | Wednesday, July 27, 2022, 8:01 AM
   10. REFERENCE: Citizenship status in territories of the United States —ORG (NOTE: Before I eventually found answer, I wrote to Ballotpedia posing the question of whether citizens of US territories can vote in presidential elections if they move to the US. Ballotpedia didn’t mention this at all.)
   11. REFERENCE: The Only U.S. Territory Without U.S. Birthright Citizenship; People born in American Samoa, which has been held by the United States for more than 120 years, are not automatically citizens of the United States. By Natasha Frost | NYTIMES.COM | Nov. 25, 2022. “[American Samoans] aren’t United States citizens. Instead, American Samoans are U.S. “nationals,” a small but significant distinction …”
   12. REFERENCE: Hertz apologizes after refusing rental car to Puerto Rican customer — Read more, THEGUARDIAN.COM
8. US halts online asylum appointments at Texas crossing after extortion warnings; By Valerie Gonzalez and Julie Watson | APNEWS.COM | June 12, 2023
   1. The Biden administration has stopped taking mobile app appointments to admit asylum-seekers at a Texas border crossing that connects to a notoriously dangerous Mexican city after advocates warned U.S. authorities that migrants were being targeted there for extortion.
   2. US. Customs and Border Protection gave no explanation for its decision to stop scheduling new appointments via the CBP One app for the crossing in Laredo, Texas.
   3. Several asylum-seekers told The Associated Press that Mexican officials in Nuevo Laredo, across the border from Laredo, Texas, had threatened to hold them and make them miss their scheduled asylum appointments unless they paid them. Humanitarian groups in Laredo say they had recently warned CBP of the problems and that certain groups were controlling access to the international crossing on the Mexican side.
   4. Migrant advocates say the situation in Nuevo Laredo, which is plagued by cartel fighting and other problems, casts doubt on the administration’s argument that Mexico is a safe place for the record number of people fleeing violence in Central America and elsewhere.
   5. Rafael Alvarez, 29, who fled Venezuela, said that after he landed in Nuevo Laredo in early June, Mexican immigration authorities at the airport seized his travel documents, including a printout of the email confirming his CBP One appointment, and demanded he pay 1,000 Mexican pesos, about $57. He was held with other migrants. …
   6. Earlier this month, the Mexican newspaper El Universal published video it obtained that was taken through a bus window, showing a federal agent taking bills from migrants and stuffing them in his pocket as he checked passports in the Pacific coast state of Jalisco. The agency said it had suspended two of its agents there and that it does not tolerate the rights of migrants being violated.
   7. The newspaper also obtained government documents through a freedom of information request that showed the agency had opened 119 investigations against agents between 2017 and 2023 for misconduct. …
   8. The Department of Homeland Security said in an email to the AP that CBP One has been instrumental in creating a more efficient and orderly system at the border “while cutting out unscrupulous smugglers who profit from vulnerable migrants.”
   9. Neither the U.S. nor the Mexican governments addressed questions from the AP regarding the reports of migrants who use the app being extorted.
   10. The app was criticized for technological problems when it started Jan. 12. The government has made improvements in recent weeks, but demand has far outstripped supply, prompting many to consider crossing the border illegally or giving up.
   11. The administration has said anyone who does not use legal channels will be deported back to their homeland and face being barred from be able to seek asylum in the U.S. for five years.
   12. ANDREW: Mexico is absolutely not a safe place for asylum-seekers, as the Mexican government has agreed to receive people unfairly denied asylum by the US, and Mexican state governments are bending to Greg Abbott’s demands to stop migrants from reaching Texas by enacting policies that enable abuse against migrants by state authorities. In these ways, Mexico is complicit with the US and other Western nations in enacting and supporting policies that extract wealth from the rest of the world, leaving people who live in the nations impacted with no other choice but to try and move to a Western nation for work that underpays them. And when they get near, they’re met with abuse and extortion like this. In short, this problem is bigger than Mexico, and bigger than immigration law.
   13. ANDREW: With that said, there should be efforts to reduce harm wherever possible. Stopping appointments in Nuevo Laredo isn’t enough to do that, as the extortion will simply instead take place in other cities, and now any migrants in Nuevo Laredo will have to find transport somewhere else to schedule a new appointment (even though the appointments are online). The US cannot exercise direct control over Mexican immigration officials to reduce corruption, so the best solution I can think of is to issue conditional asylum-seeker visas so that at least people trying to immigrate are facing US immigration officials, who can be overseen by the US government. Of course, the US government would have to actually oversee immigration officials for that to make much difference.
   14. MIKE: In large part, I agree with Andrew. That the migrants are trying to escape countries where they are in danger by passing through countries where they are in equal or greater danger is horrible.
   15. MIKE: Mexico is what might economically be called a Second World country. The migrants have linguistic and cultural commonalities with Mexico. In theory, Mexico should be a haven for these people. The problem is that Mexico and some of the Central American countries are in danger of becoming ‘failed states’.
   16. MIKE: According to Wikipedia, “A failed state is a state that has lost its effective ability to govern its populace. A failed state maintains legal sovereignty but experiences a breakdown in political power, law enforcement, and civil society, leading to a state of near-anarchy. Common characteristics of a failing state include a government unable to tax and police its populace, control its territory, fill political or civil offices, or maintain its infrastructure. …”
   17. MIKE: As a matter of US foreign policy, this is the bigger picture for concern. It’s the reason why the US should try to help the countries from which these migrants are trying to escape stabilize themselves, making them more hospitable for these people to remain at home. It’s a major reason for more effective gun control; if not within US borders, then certainly controlling American guns leaving our borders. The civilian US gun market fuels a lot of the gun violence in Latin America; maybe most of it.
   18. MIKE: “A rising tide lifts all boats.” Perhaps most uniquely in its history, the US recognized this truism when it inaugurated the post-WW2 Marshall Plan. The end result of that policy was a continent of strong, affluent, stable allies. This history is not directly applicable to many of the countries in question given their current states of governance, but we need to figure out some equivalent kind of long-term policy, if only for our own self-interest.
9. ‘We can rebuild’: Ukrainian mayor sees opportunity amid dam chaos; By Dan Sabbagh in Novovorontsovka | COM | Mon 12 Jun 2023 10.49 EDT, Last modified on Mon 12 Jun 2023 13.59 EDT
   1. It is a prospect that would prompt many to despair. But not [Andrii] Seletskyi, even though last week’s events will bring a dramatic change in the geography and hydrology of his town, Novovorontsovka. As a student of history, he has been thinking ahead and sees opportunity amid the chaos. …
   2. In his office Seletskyi explains further. “We don’t know where the water will stop,” he begins, but then he heads to the wall and the past to offer a prediction. “In 2020, we started a project of local history, and we bought from the United States aerial photographs taken by the Luftwaffe in 1943.” These showed the topography of the region before Nova Kakhovka was completed in 1956.
   3. He started the project because he believed “there would be an emergency or explosion and the dam could be damaged”, but says no one took him very seriously. The regional governor in Kherson was completely dismissive until after the disaster, says Seletskyi. …
   4. Before the dam was completed, there were a series of smaller rivers lying in a floodplain, the nearest of which was the Bystryk. Its banks were 1km away from Novovorontsovka, Seletskyi says, pointing out the distance on the wartime photograph. The retreat of the Dnipro will require the town to find other water sources, he says, as he does not expect the dam to be rebuilt.
   5. There is no immediate water crisis, … but to ensure a sustained long-term supply, engineers will have to complete pumping works on two remaining usable wells before an existing reservoir runs dry – assuming, that is, the town can get the money its needs … . Money has been promised by Kyiv but the project could take six months or more, Seletskyi says.
   6. Complicating the picture further is the fact that the water infrastructure and Novovorontsovka remain in range of Russian guns across the river. Fear is as much of a problem as the danger of enemy shelling. “The day before yesterday, workers trying to repair water pipes evacuated a couple of times because they thought that river gulls flying towards them were Russian drones,” Seletskyi says.
   7. Mines from the current war and even old explosives from the second world war remain a danger – specialist teams have been deployed five times so far to tackle contemporary and historic weaponry. The Dnipro was scene of a vast battle in late 1943, and military helmets and skulls, thought to be from that time, have ghoulishly appeared on the surface of the mud left be the receding waters. …
   8. The optimism under the circumstances is remarkable. “Of course we can rebuild,” says Seletskyi. “We have precedents in history. There are countries like Germany that were 90% destroyed after the war. They restored everything. I love my land and my home town, and I have this feeling of collective responsibility.”
   9. ANDREW: Just goes to show that sometimes it pays to have someone thinking about the things nobody else wants to think about.
   10. MIKE: I found this story to be uplifting. It makes the point that there was no dam before 1956, and now there is no dam again. As catastrophic as the dam’s destruction was, this mayor has had the foresight and optimism to have looked at both the past and the future and is determined to find a way forward. That takes some real courage.
10. Thread on the Nova Kakhovka Dam, by Timothy Snyder. June 7, 2023. (Timothy Snyder is the Levin Professor of History at Yale. Author of “On Tyranny,” with 20 new lessons on Ukraine, “Our Malady,” “Road to Unfreedom,” “Black Earth,” and “Bloodlands”)
    1. MIKE: This is an opinion piece posted as a Twitter thread. This may be the first time that “bothsides” has been used as a verb, although “bothsidesism” has been used as a noun.
    2. The Nova Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine, controlled by Russia, has been destroyed. This brings humanitarian, ecological, and economic disaster to Ukrainians. Here are some guidelines for writing about this catastrophe.
    3. Avoid the temptation “to bothsides” a calamity.  That’s not journalism.
    4. When a Russian spokesperson claims that Ukraine did something (e.g. blow a dam), this is not part of a story of an event in the real world.  It is part of a different story: about all the outrageous claims Russia has made about Ukraine since invading in 2014.
    5. Citing Russian claims next to Ukrainian claims is unfair to the Ukrainians.  What Russian spokespersons have said has almost always been untrue, whereas what Ukrainian spokespersons have said has largely been reliable. The juxtaposition suggests a false equality.
    6. If a Russian spokesman (e.g. Dmitri Peskov) must be cited, it must be mentioned that this specific figure has lied about every aspect of this war. This is not insult but context.  Readers picking up the story in the middle need to know the background.
    7. If Russian propaganda for external consumption is cited, so must that for internal consumption. Propagandists long argued that Ukrainian dams should be blown. A Russian parliamentarian takes for granted Russia blew the dam and rejoices. See @JuliaDavisNews.
    8. When a story begins with bothsidesing, readers are instructed that an object in the physical world (like a dam) is just an element of narrative. They are guided into the wrong genre (literature) right at the moment when analysis is needed. This does their minds a disservice.
    9. Dams are objects. How they can be destroyed is a subject for experts. This NYT story has the merit of treating dams as physical rather than narrative objects. It becomes clear that the dam was likely destroyed by an explosion from the inside.
    10. Russia was in control of the relevant part of the dam when it exploded. This is an elemental part of the context. It comes before what anyone says. When a murder is investigated, detectives think about means. Russia had the means. Ukraine did not.
    11. The [NY Times] story doesn’t start at the moment the dam explodes. For the last fifteen months Russia has been killing Ukrainian civilians and destroying Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, whereas Ukraine has been trying to protect its people and the structures that keep them alive.
    12. The setting includes military history. Armies that are attacking do not blow dams to block their own path of advance.  Armies that are retreating do blow dams to slow the advance of the other side.  Ukraine was advancing, and Russia was retreating.
    13. Objectivity does not mean treating an event as a coin flip between two public statements. It demands thinking about the objects and the settings that readers require for understanding amidst uncertainty.
    14. ANDREW: I don’t know enough about the invasion of Crimea to know for sure, but nothing in this thread jumps out at me as false. I think it’s very clear that Professor Snyder supports Ukraine against Russia in this war, and I think that’s a reasonable position. I also agree with his larger points about accurate reporting and context in journalism.
    15. ANDREW: However, I think he combines his points about journalism with his support for Ukraine here in a way that makes his opinions about Ukraine sound more like facts, which they aren’t. For example, he states that, “What Russian spokespersons have said has almost always been untrue, whereas what Ukrainian spokespersons have said has largely been reliable.”
    16. ANDREW: This is an opinion — not that the Russian government has lied, and that the Ukrainian government has been truthful, because both things are true– but about their frequency. Russia has almost always lied, Ukraine has largely told the truth. That is his opinion, based on what he has seen. It’s a legitimate opinion, but it’s not an evidenced fact, yet it’s presented alongside objective observations about truth and falsehood in journalism with no explicit marker between fact and opinion.
    17. ANDREW: I’m not saying his points should be discarded based on this. But I am saying that, as with all sources, bias must be considered, and clear lines of fact and opinion must be drawn; if not by the author, then by the reader. I would feel more comfortable agreeing with Professor Snyder’s opinion if he was more clear about what parts of his analysis are his subjective opinion.
    18. MIKE: Andrew and I did quite a lot of hashing this out before the show. I think we put different interpretations on this thread. I see it as more about the “bothsidesism” of journalism. Andrew, I think, sees it more as an opinion piece on the war.
    19. REFERENCE: Internal Blast Probably Breached Ukraine Dam, Experts Say (Cautiously) — NY Times, June 6, 2023
11. Long-sought universal flu vaccine: mRNA-based candidate enters clinical trial; The phase I trial will test safety and efficacy in a small number of people. Beth Mole | ARSTECHNICA.COM | 5/16/2023, 6:26 PM
    1. An mRNA-based flu vaccine designed to offer long-lasting protection against a broad range of influenza viruses is now in a phase I clinical trial, the National Institutes of Health announced this week.
    2. The trial brings the remarkable success of the mRNA vaccine platform to the long-standing efforts to develop a universal flu vaccine. Currently, health systems around the globe battle the seasonal scourge with shots that have to be reformulated each year to match circulating strains. This reformulation happens months before typical transmission, providing manufacturers time to produce doses at scale but also giving the strain circulation chances to shift unexpectedly. If the year’s shot is a poor match for the strains that circulate in a given season, efficacy against infection can be abysmal. Still, even when the shot is well-matched, people will need another shot next year.
    3. “A universal influenza vaccine would be a major public health achievement and could eliminate the need for both annual development of seasonal influenza vaccines, as well as the need for patients to get a flu shot each year,” Hugh Auchincloss, acting director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a news release. “Moreover, some strains of influenza virus have significant pandemic potential. A universal flu vaccine could serve as an important line of defense against the spread of a future flu pandemic.” …
    4. MIKE: As this article is from Ars Technica, it goes into somewhat more detail about how this vaccine might work, but I think the essence of this story is that such a thing might not only be possible, but be within reach.
    5. MIKE: mRNA vaccines hold great potential for fighting contagious diseases. Perhaps even cancers. It’s ironic that at a time when we are struggling to stay ahead of bacterial immunity, we might be making great strides against viruses.
    6. ANDREW: It’ll be great if it works, and I really hope the formula can be made public domain, or at least remain the property of the federal government. Something like this shouldn’t be locked behind pharmaceutical company profits, and it could be a strategically important source of goodwill for the US internationally if we allow the vaccine to be produced and distributed abroad, especially if it gains purchase in rival nations.

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