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POSSIBLE TOPICS: VOTETEXAS.GOV—Voter Information; REGISTER TO VOTE; APPLY FOR MAIL-IN BALLOT; The Woodlands Township approves 3% homestead exemption; $32M Poor Farm Ditch flood control project moves forward with federal funding; Harris County invests $1.7M into virtual deputy services to trim emergency response times; Houston sues state in attempt to block new law that erodes cities’ power; Third-party candidates may have an easier time getting on the ballot in Texas; Florida moves forward on radioactive road paving plan as Gov. DeSantis signs new law; The New Republican Litmus Test Is Very Dangerous; World registers hottest day ever recorded on July 3; America’s Cultural Revolution; 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. 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. The Woodlands Township approves 3% homestead exemption; By Vanessa Holt | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 9:24 AM Jun 29, 2023 CDT, Updated 9:24 AM Jun 29, 2023 CDT
   1. The Woodlands Township board of directors approved a resolution raising its property tax exemption for residents with disabilities or who are age 65 and older at its June 28 meeting. It also approved a 3% homestead exemption, a first for the township.
   2. In a nutshell: The property tax exemption for homeowners who are age 65 and older or disabled will be increased to $50,000. Last year, The Woodlands Township raised the exemption for homeowners age 65 and older or disabled from $25,000 to $40,000, Community Impact previously reported.
   3. The township did not previously have a homestead exemption applying to all residents. A homestead exemption lowers the amount paid on a property used as a primary residence. The 3% exemption means qualifying taxpayers will reduce the value on which they pay taxes.
   4. President and CEO Monique Sharp said homestead properties comprise 56% of the properties in the township. …
   5. ANDREW: 56% of properties in the township are homesteads? Either there’s a lot of widows and widowers in The Woodlands, or this exemption is being extended well beyond the original purpose of the concept.
   6. MIKE: I think we might infer that the other 44% of properties are not primary residences (which is the definition of a homestead), or business-related, or vacant or vacant or otherwise exempted land.
4. $32M Poor Farm Ditch flood control project moves forward with federal funding; By Shawn Arrajj | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 4:50 PM Jun 28, 2023 CDT, Updated 4:49 PM Jun 28, 2023 CDT
   9. A vital flood control project for residents in three cities is moving forward with a new injection of federal funding. … [The] effort to improve Poor Farm Ditch will proceed with help from $9.9 million in federal funding. In addition, two cities, one county and Texas are all contributing funds to advance the project. …
   10. Design work on the human-made, concrete-lined Poor Farm Ditch has been underway since 2015, though studies into the stormwater conveyance channel date back to the 1990s …
   11. Work on Poor Farm Ditch has been a focal point of the flood control discussions underway in both West University Place and Southside Place with homes in both cities abutting the ditch. West University Place officials are also looking into the feasibility of enclosing Poor Farm Ditch north of University Boulevard. …
   12. [U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher [D-Houston] said that the] improvements are expected to increase protection for 500 homes and more than 1,000 residents, Fletcher said.
   13. Design work will carry on for six months to a year, which will be followed by a construction bidding process. Once a construction bid is approved, the construction on the ditch could take another 18 months to complete.
   14. MIKE: This is another example of ‘you get the government you pay for’. A quarter of this money is coming from a mix of the Harris County Flood Control District, and the cities of Southside Place and West University Place. A quarter of the money is coming from the federal government, and half is coming from the State.
   15. ANDREW: Is this a rare good example of getting the government you pay for?
5. Harris County invests $1.7M into virtual deputy services to trim emergency response times; By Emily Lincke | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 1:43 PM Jun 28, 2023 CDT, Updated 1:43 PM Jun 28, 2023 CDT
   1. For low-priority calls to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, more deputies will be available to respond virtually thanks to a $1.7 million investment from county commissioners on June 27.
   2. Long story short: Harris County Commissioners Court unanimously approved the allocation of federal American Rescue Plan Act funds to add overtime officers to HCSO’s TeleDeputy unit on June 27. The unit responds only to nonviolent calls—such as an abandoned vehicle or a crime tip—which make up about 60% of HCSO’s total calls, Precinct 4 Commissioner Lesley Briones said.
   3. The outlook: HCSO’s response time for emergency calls is about 14 minutes; the commissioners’ investment in the TeleDeputy unit is expected to bring the response time down to 10 minutes, Briones said. …
   4. ANDREW: What I like about the TeleDeputy program is that it means fewer chances of a law enforcement officer flipping out on someone for perceived disrespect, or arresting someone to fill a quota, or because of prejudice. It’s hard to cuff someone over the phone. But unfortunately, I don’t think this program is really going to solve any underlying issues.
   5. ANDREW: Having read more about it, most of the business that the TeleDeputy program is intended to handle is very administrative, and probably doesn’t need the authority of a law enforcement officer to get done. A lot of municipal tasks are just handed to police departments without any further thought, and that’s one reason why police budgets around the country are ballooning.
   6. ANDREW: I think this particular funding would be better spent on hiring more people to work in other administrative county departments, and redirecting these nonviolent calls to be handled by those new staff. It would probably work out a lot cheaper than paying a bunch of cops overtime rates to do the same job.
   7. MIKE: I had to read this story carefully because when I saw “virtual deputy” in the headline, my first thought was that it might be a conversational AI. I think I’m mentally jumping ahead in time.
   8. MIKE: I hope any money saved will go into other and better and safer ways to handle various kinds of non-violent and public nuisance complaints.
6. Houston sues state in attempt to block new law that erodes cities’ power; by Joshua Fechter | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | July 3, 2023 — Updated: 23 hours ago
   1. Houston officials sued the state of Texas on Monday to stop a sweeping law aimed at gutting all kinds of local ordinances and sapping the power of the state’s bluer urban areas.
   2. The law — House Bill 2127, dubbed the “Death Star” bill by opponents — was signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott in June, marking Texas Republicans’ biggest attempt yet to kneecap local governments in a yearslong assault on Texas’ major metropolitan areas, often governed by Democrats.
   3. The law prevents cities and counties from creating local ordinances that go further than what’s allowed under broad areas of state law, an attempt to overturn cities’ progressive policies. Among those policies are mandated water breaks for construction workers in Dallas and Austin, a component of the law that’s gained more criticism as Texas experiences a drastic summer heat wave.
   4. Leaders of local governments across the state criticized the proposal as a massive power grab that would upend how the state has operated for nearly a century and prevent them from responding to local needs. Under the new state law, cities and counties could not pass local rules that touch on broad “fields” regulated by state law — like labor, agriculture, finance and natural resources. The law’s broad language, they have argued, makes it difficult to determine which local ordinances are now illegal and will prompt a litany of lawsuits.
   5. In Houston, the law would overturn local ordinances regulating tow-truck companies, outdoor music festivals, noise regulations and boarding homes, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said at a Monday press conference. But the full extent of what local laws would become illegal remains unclear.
   6. “What this means is that cities like the city of Houston cannot pass ordinances in these areas unless the state of Texas explicitly gives us permission to do so,” Turner said. “That is a total reversal from the way things have been in this state for more than a century.”
   7. In the lawsuit filed Monday in Travis County court, Houston leaders argue that the new law violates the state constitution and significantly weakens cities’ authority to self-govern. The law conflicts with a portion of the constitution that allows cities to enact their own laws, they argue. In order for the law to take effect, voters would have to approve a constitutional amendment, they said.
   8. The state constitution already forbids cities from enacting laws “inconsistent with” the constitution or laws passed by state lawmakers. Houston officials see an opening there to strike down the law, arguing a local ordinance can’t conflict with state law if there isn’t a specific state law the ordinance would directly conflict with, the lawsuit says.
   9. Abbott and business lobbying groups, particularly the National Federation of Independent Business, have long pushed for a wide-ranging law like HB 2127 that negates city rules like mandated water breaks and paid sick leave ordinances in Austin, Dallas and San Antonio — which courts had prevented from taking effect.
   10. Proponents of the bill on Monday blasted the involvement of Local Solutions Support Center — a California organization that bills itself as a national hub to counter state laws that undermine local governments’ ability to self-govern — in the lawsuit.
   11. “I am not surprised that leftist cities are working with activists from California to try and slow down the implementation” of HB 2127, state Rep. Dustin Burrows, a Lubbock Republican who authored the law, wrote in a tweet Monday. “I have confidence this bill will become law, and help ensure Texas’ economy thrives for future generations.”
   12. The new law is the most wide-ranging effort to-date by Texas Republicans to undercut the leaders of the state’s large urban areas. In recent years, lawmakers have passed laws to prevent cities and counties from requiring landlords to rent to tenants with federal housing vouchers or regulating fracking within their limits. If cities and counties want to raise property taxes a certain amount each year or rein in their police budgets, they have to get voter approval under legislation approved in the past few years. Local governments can no longer enact mask mandates or require schools or businesses to close if there’s a COVID-19 outbreak under a new law passed this year. HB 2127 is slated to take effect Sept. 1.
   13. MIKE: From this article, I’m going to take what may seem to some an extraordinary discussional leap:
   14. MIKE: Is the Republican Party generally, and the Texas Republican Party in particular, turning unabashedly (as opposed to incrementally) fascist?
   15. MIKE: I do not say this to be scary or hyperbolic. I mean it as a serious question, to be taken seriously.
   16. MIKE: Fascism, Communism, Socialism, Capitalism, Liberal Democracy, Autocracy, and so many more … You’ll hear these terms bandied about a lot these days. They’re rarely used to enlighten you anymore. Mostly they are used to scare or even terrify you. It doesn’t matter which ideological side you’re on, there’s a boogeyman to terrify everyone.
   17. MIKE: I think it’s safe to say that Fascism and Communism, as practiced in the 20^th century, have both been very bad. It’s often said that if you look at a circle of ideologies, Communism can be so far left and Fascism can be so far right, that they meet on the other side. There are certainly differences, but they have one thing in common: Oppression and unfreedom for the average person.
   18. MIKE: Since Communism does not appear to be a burgeoning threat in the US, let’s talk about Fascism.
   19. MIKE: I’ve looked up definitions of Fascism from a variety of sources, ranging from academic to journalistic. Here are a few from the sources I’ve linked to:
       1. From Britannica.com: “Although fascist parties and movements differed significantly from one another, they had many characteristics in common, including extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and the rule of elites, and the desire to create a Volksgemeinschaft (German: “people’s community”), in which individual interests would be subordinated to the good of the nation.” ~ Britannica.com.
       2. From World101.com: “In many ways, fascist regimes are revolutionary because they advocate the overthrow of existing systems of government and the persecution of political enemies. However, when it advances their interests, such regimes can also be highly conservative in their championing of traditional values related to the role of women, social hierarchy, and obedience to authority. And although fascist leaders typically claim to support the everyman, in reality their regimes often align with powerful business interests.” ~ World101.com.
       3. From Merriam-Webster.Com: “Often capitalized : 1) a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the [Italian] Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition; 2) a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control” ~ Merriam-Webster.Com
       4. From the Constitutional Rights Foundation: “[S]cholars often disagree on a precise definition of fascism. Even so, they tend to agree on its common characteristics such as:
          1. Absolute Power of the State: Fascist regimes have a strong centralized state, or national government. The fascist state seeks total control over all major parts of society. Individuals must give up their private needs and rights to serve the needs of the whole society as represented by the state.
          2. Rule by a Dictator: A single dictator runs the fascist state and makes all the important decisions. This leader often uses charisma, a magnetic personality, to gain the support of the people.
          3. Corporatism: Fascists believe in taming capitalism by controlling labor and factory owners. Unions, strikes, and other labor actions are illegal. Although private property remains, the state controls the economy.
          4. Extreme Nationalism: The fascist state uses national glory and the fear of outside threats to build a new society based on the “common will” of the people. Fascists believe in action and looking at national myths for guidance rather than relying on the “barren intellectualism” of science and reason.
          5. Superiority of the Nation’s People: Fascists hold up the nation’s people as superior to other nationalities. They typically strengthen and unify the dominant group in a nation while stifling dissent and persecuting minority groups.
          6. Militarism and Imperialism: Fascists believe that great nations show their greatness by conquering and ruling weak nations. Fascists believe the state can survive only if it successfully proves its military superiority in war. ~ Constitutional Rights Foundation
   20. From CBSNEWS.COM: : “Fascism is generally defined as a political movement that embraces far-right nationalism and the forceful suppression of any opposition, all overseen by an authoritarian government. Fascists strongly oppose Marxism, liberalism and democracy, and believe the state takes precedence over individual interests. They favor centralized rule, often a single party or leader, and embrace the idea of a national rebirth, a new greatness for their country. Economic self-sufficiency is prized, often through state-controlled companies. Youth, masculinity and strength are highly fetishized.” ~ CBSNEWS.COM
   21. MIKE: By now, you should detect a theme here, though the wording may vary. To paraphrase famous Redneck comedian, Jeff Foxworthy, “If this sounds like a a political party in your country, they might be Fascists.
   22. ANDREW: Unsurprisingly, I disagree with your comparison of communism and fascism; some kinds of communists have done harmful things, but I believe that no communist state has ultimately acted worse than the USA, which gets every chance to reform itself. Communist states that do harm should get that same chance.
   23. ANDREW: Not to mention the goals are totally different: fascism aims to forcibly homogenize everyone in a society so they can be better exploited to benefit a small elite, whereas all forms of communism value diversity and cooperative production to benefit everyone. This is one argument against the horseshoe theory you mentioned; another is evidence that far-left and far-right people disagree way more than they agree on values and policy.
   24. ANDREW: I do agree with you, however, that Republicans are becoming fascist, though I think they’re missing two characteristics: absolute power of the state, and rule by a dictator.
   25. ANDREW: Republicans love using state power to serve their interests, but there are policy areas where they want to limit even Republican state interference so they can harm others with impunity. The two I think of first are business regulations (especially around labor), and child abuse regulations (especially homeschooling, corporal punishment, and sexual abuse).
   26. ANDREW: Republicans also certainly apply the great man theory to their current political darlings, but there are so many political darlings that most of them draw relatively equal amounts of supporters, stopping any one person from consolidating power within the party.
   27. ANDREW: It is, of course, a good thing that Republicans aren’t yet fully fascist, but I fear that won’t last. I think Democrats collude with Republicans for political and social gain too often to effectively resist them (though I am glad a Democratic mayor is standing up to them here), so I once again put my faith and energy in the organizing and direct action of the people. There is strength in numbers, and far more people oppose the Republican Party than support them.
       
   28. ANDREW: Voting may not be enough. We should all prepare for the day when our strength is needed in public and in our communities to keep each other alive.
   29. REFERENCE: “What Is Fascism? — A century of attempts to define and whitewash Fascism”; Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Dec 7, 2022
   30. REFERENCE: “Fascism’s History Offers Lessons about Today’s Attacks on Education — Moves in Florida to control public education mirror past fascist strategies in ways that are disquieting for American democracy, a historian argues” ~ SCIENTIFICAMERICAN.COM, By Eden McLean on April 7, 2023
   31. REFERENCE: “Trump and the Republican party exemplify these five elements of fascism”, By Robert Reich | THEGUARDIAN.COM | Sat 17 Jun 2023 06.05 EDT
7. Third-party candidates may have an easier time getting on the ballot in Texas; A federal judge blocks an 118-year-old state law that required minor political party candidates to collect more than 83,000 signatures on paper in order to appear on the ballot. By Noah Alcala Bach | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | June 29, 2023, 8 PM Central
   1. … U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman ruled on Monday that the requirement was unconstitutionally applied to minor political parties and candidates. Major political parties are not required to get signatures.
   2. “Texas first adopted that procedure in 1905, and defendants admitted that it has not been significantly updated or improved in the 118 years since,” Pitman said in his order.
   3. The lawsuit was filed in 2019 by four minor political parties: the Libertarian Party of Texas, the Green Party of Texas, America’s Party of Texas and the Constitution Party of Texas.
   4. “Speaking for myself and for libertarians, generally, we are obviously partisan and want to benefit libertarian candidates and voters,” Whitney Bilyeu, chair of the Libertarian Party of Texas said. … Bilyeu said that now that signatures can be obtained electronically, less time, money and human resources will have to be invested by third-party candidates to get on the ballot.
   5. State law required minor party candidates to obtain 83,717 paper signatures in 75 days. Under the new order, they can now obtain those signatures electronically. …
   6. MIKE: I think that this is a fair ruling. On the face of it, we now need ranked choice voting (RCV) more than ever. With the exception of presidential elections where the electoral college comes into play, I think that third parties on the ballot give American voters a way of expressing diverse ideas on how they should be governed. By including ranked choice voting in that process, you winnow out extreme fringes and strawman candidates that distort the majority of the voters’ intent. Runoff elections are not enough, as the remaining candidates available can still be “gamed”.
   7. MIKE: As Charles Kuffner points out in his “Off The Kuff” piece, “I presume there will still be a process to verify the electronically-collected signatures. It’s possible the capacity for fraud is greater this way, but there ought to be ways to check that as well. I don’t know exactly how this will work – perhaps the Secretary of State will have to provide some rules – but I’m not too worried about it.”
   8. ANDREW: I actually argue that ranked choice doesn’t winnow out anyone; it allows voters to support alternative candidates that they like without harming their chances of getting second-best mainstream candidates. Both major and minor political currents benefit from RCV, and that’s one of its best qualities to me.
   9. ANDREW: As for the ruling, I agree entirely. It doesn’t suddenly eliminate all the advantages that Republicans and Democrats get in the law, but it does at least mean that third parties can save some precious funds, as getting candidates on the ballot could now be feasibly done by volunteers alone.
   10. ANDREW: More-so if this ruling allows a signing system like Arizona’s, which voters can access from anywhere, instead of a special app that still requires people to sign physically like in Denver and D.C. But even in that case, those apps have a link to the voter rolls, so fewer signatures need to be collected because the software confirms them right then and there. No matter what comes next, this ruling is a clear win for minor parties and for voter choice.
   11. REFERENCE: Federal judge rules for third parties in petition access lawsuit; Jul 3rd, 2023 by Charles Kuffner.
   12. REFERENCE: Ballot access requirements for political candidates in Texas — BALLOTPEDIA.ORG
8. Florida moves forward on radioactive road paving plan as Gov. DeSantis signs new law; By Bill Chappell | NPR.ORG | Updated June 30, 20231:24 PM ET
   1. Florida is another step closer to paving its roads with phosphogypsum — a radioactive waste material from the fertilizer industry — after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a controversial bill into law Thursday.
   2. Conservation groups had urged DeSantis to veto the bill, saying phosphogypsum would hurt water quality and put road construction crews at a higher risk of cancer.
   3. “… Gov. DeSantis is paving the way to a toxic legacy generations of Floridians will have to grapple with,” said Elise Bennett, Florida and Caribbean director at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement sent to NPR.
   4. The Environmental Protection Agency also has a say: The agency regulates phosphogypsum, and any plan to use it in roads would require a review. …
   5. The new law looks to clear the way for phosphogypsum to be used as a pavement aggregate alongside crushed stone, gravel, sand and other materials. …
   6. HB 1191 compels the Florida Transportation Department to conduct “demonstration projects using phosphogypsum in road construction aggregate material to determine its feasibility as a paving material,” as it studies using phosphogypsum in roads.
   7. Florida’s transportation agency now has [until April 1, 2024] to complete a study and make a recommendation; …
   8. DeSantis signed the bill into law several days after formally receiving it. The Republican-dominated Florida Legislature had approved the measure by a wide margin.
   9. What is phosphogypsum and why is there so much of it?: In fertilizer, phosphorus is important for plants to grow strong roots and for crops to be productive. To make phosphoric acid for fertilizer and a few other uses, phosphate rock is dissolved in sulfuric acid. Phosphogypsum is what’s left over.
   10. The commonly used production process, which dates to the 1840s, is not very efficient. For every ton of phosphoric acid produced, more than 5 tons of phosphogypsum waste is generated. …
   11. “Phosphogypsum contains appreciable quantities of uranium and its decay products, such as radium-226,” according to the EPA, which also notes that because the fertilizer production process concentrates waste material, “phosphogypsum is more radioactive than the original phosphate rock.”
   12. “The radium is of particular concern because it decays to form radon, a cancer-causing, radioactive gas,” the EPA adds.
   13. An analysis commissioned by the Fertilizer Institute, a group that represents the fertilizer industry, disagrees, saying that using phosphogypsum in road construction won’t produce radioactive doses that are above the EPA’s acceptable risks. Such work, it stated, “can be done safely and results in doses that are a small fraction of those arising from natural background radiation.”
   14. Last November, researchers in China who reviewed numerous existing studies on recycling phosphogypsum said they were optimistic about its potential use in road construction materials. But they also concluded that more studies were needed, noting that “few studies have focused on its durability or analyzed its long-term effects on soil and water resources.”
   15. Conservation and environmental groups banded together to fight the Florida bill, saying it caters to the fertilizer industry — which, they said, … has shown it can’t adequately manage the more than 1 billion tons of waste currently stored in the state. …
   16. The EPA says “phosphogypsum remains prohibited from use in road construction,” as it has been almost continuously for more than 30 years.
   17. Under former President Donald Trump, the EPA briefly rescinded that policy starting in October 2020. But it reinstated the rule in June 2021. …
   18. The agency said Florida would have to apply for approval of its plan, citing the code of federal regulations. As with any other proposed project, the EPA would then open a public comment period, release its own technical analysis and seek input about the proposal.
   19. MIKE: In my opinion, if the roads don’t glow in the dark, they aren’t using enough radioactivity.
   20. MIKE: But to get serious, there is a reason why the technician puts a lead apron on you and the leaves the room before you get dental x-rays: No amount of radiation is considered safe.
   21. MIKE: In a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) document called “Military Uses of Radium-226” [page 2], it says that, “A primary military activity today involving radium-226 is the remediation of military bases … so that base property can be transferred to local governments or others and redeveloped for public use.” In other words, the US military removes this stuff to make ex-bases safe, but the State government of Florida wants it in their roads.
   22. MIKE: So, this is another example of how modern Republican rule can be bad for your health.
   23. ANDREW: This reminds me of a Rolling Stone article about the practice of brine-spreading, which is where oil and gas companies that produce radioactive brine wastewater from their fracking wells (yes, fracking produces radioactive waste) give it for free to small municipalities so they can use it to de-ice their roads on the cheap.
   24. ANDREW: Of course, that radioactive brine then seeps into the ground, contaminating the soil and water table, not to mention the effect that living near or regularly travelling brined roads can have on humans. Or oil and gas workers, who get exposed to and handle this stuff regularly and often are never told it’s radioactive or are told it’s no worse than background radiation (sound familiar?)!
   25. ANDREW: This practice is legal in 13 states, according to Rolling Stone, but I couldn’t find any evidence of whether Florida is one of those states. It wouldn’t surprise me, hearing this news, though.
   26. ANDREW: Average people should not be exposed to radioactive waste just walking down the street, whether the waste is spread on or paved in. I hope these issues together prompt new regulation around radioactive waste use in publicly-accessible infrastructure.
   27. MIKE: Could we both agree that this proposal of paving with slightly-radioactive material would only be more Republican if they used child labor? Child Labor: It’s good enough for Arkansas.
   28. REFERENCE: Florida lawmakers want to use radioactive material to pave roads |ORG | Updated May 9, 2023 12:55 PM ET | By Bill Chappell
9. The New Republican Litmus Test Is Very Dangerous; Candidates who do not speculate about war with Mexico may be perceived as weak. By David Frum | THEATLANTIC.COM | June 28, 2023, 12:06 PM ET
   1. War with Mexico? It’s on the 2024 ballot, at least if you believe the campaign rhetoric of more and more Republican candidates.
   2. In January, two Republican House members introduced a bill to authorize the use of military force inside Mexico. … One was Dan Crenshaw of Texas, a former Navy Seal who received a master’s degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. The other was Mike Waltz of Florida, a former Green Beret who served as the counterterrorism adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney and was a successful entrepreneur before he entered Congress.
   3. Military operations inside Mexico have been endorsed by Republican senators too. Last September, Tom Cotton of Arkansas published an op-ed that [proposed using] “special operators and elite tactical [to] destroy the cartel’s super labs and organizational infrastructure. We must work closely with the Mexican government and ensure its continued support in this effort—but we cannot allow it to delay or hinder this necessary campaign.”
   4. At a committee hearing in March, South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham also favored military operations … He concluded: “They are at war with us. We need to be at war with them.” That was not a figure of speech. Along with fellow Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, Graham has repeatedly urged military operations against cartels backed by the “fury and might of the United States.” …
   5. At a campaign event in Eagle Pass, Texas, … Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, proposed a selective naval blockade of Mexican ports. …
   6. Sometimes the proponents of military operations inside Mexico add a caveat about cooperating with the Mexican government, as Cotton did in his op-ed and as DeSantis does in the written supplement to his naval blockade proposal.
   7. But DeSantis did not mention the caveat in his spoken remarks [on June 26], and the caveats get dropped when the idea is promoted on television and in social media. …
   8. Probably very little of this talk is meant to be taken literally. Much of it functions as a rhetorical escape from the political dilemma that Republicans and conservatives face. … Republican lawmakers have little appetite for a domestic crackdown that would criminalize so many of their own constituents and their constituents’ relatives. …
   9. But even if bomb-Mexico talk is intended only to shift blame … the talk carries real-world political dangers.
   10. The first danger of these calls for unilateral U.S. intervention is that it alienates opinion inside Mexico. Trump, DeSantis, Graham, and the others are speaking to Americans. But Mexicans can hear too. Are Americans dying because of Mexican drug sales? Mexicans are dying because of American drug purchases. Mexico has about one-third the population of the United States, but four times the homicide rate. Many, if not most, of those homicides are casualties of the battles for market share set in motion by American drug demand. Does Mexico do too little to halt the flow of opioids northward? The United States does nothing to halt the flow of guns southward.
   11. Mexican resentment of U.S. hypocrisy has weakened Mexican leaders who want to strengthen the partnership with the United States—and empowered exploiters of anti-American sentiment, including the current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. As American politicians shift from merely blaming Mexico to outright threatening Mexico, the resentment will only intensify.
   12. The second danger is an even more sinister effect within Mexico: American threats of war upon Mexico will enhance the political power of criminals against the Mexican state.
   13. … One notorious example: In 1985, Mexican cartel criminals abducted, tortured, and murdered a Drug Enforcement Agency officer, Enrique Camarena. The crime boss Rafael Caro Quintero was identified by the United States as the “intellectual author” of the murder. He was immediately arrested, but never extradited. Caro Quintero was rearrested by Mexican marines in July 2022. But President Lopez Obrador took exception at his daily morning press conference to reports that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency had located Caro Quintero, suggesting the Americans had overstepped. The Mexican courts meanwhile seemed to interpret U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland’s request for “immediate extradition” of Quintero as a potential infringement of the accused’s rights as a Mexican citizen. Nor unfortunately is this a unique case of Mexican officials using nationality as a justification to protect criminals from American justice. If Republican politicians revive ancient memories of past U.S. aggression against Mexico, it will make any such justifications more plausible and acceptable to Mexican opinion.
   14. A third danger of the war talk is that Republican politicians are radicalizing their own voters. Three years ago, proposals to bomb Mexico would have sounded crazy. But if enough people repeat the talk—if it is debated, amplified, and validated by trusted commentators—the talk gains power. It becomes thinkable, sayable, and then ultimately doable. “Doable” is not the same as “done.” But an atmosphere is being created in which Republicans who do not speculate about war with Mexico may be perceived as weak. …
   15. The fourth danger is that the Republicans have ceased to consider even the most obvious risks. Despite Lindsey Graham’s vivid language, the Mexican criminal cartels are not in fact at war with the United States. They are doing business with the United States—a lethal business, but business all the same. As rational profit-maximizers, they take care to avoid direct confrontations with American power. In March, criminals abducted four Americans in Matamoros, Mexico, killing two. After the survivors were released, the local cartel issued a public letter of apology and surrendered five men whom it blamed for the abduction. …
   16. But what if the U.S. begins bombing and rocketing cartel operations? Will the old restraints still apply? What would then deter the cartels from extending their violence across the border? “The enemy gets a vote,” goes an old warning. If the United States opts to escalate a law-enforcement challenge into a military conflict, it must prepare for its well-financed, well-armed antagonist to respond in kind. And unlike previous irregular antagonists, such as al-Qaeda or the Islamic State, this is one that intimately understands and has deeply penetrated U.S. society. …
   17. Drug interdiction has not worked in Southeast Asia, in Afghanistan, [or] in Andean South America. American demand and American wealth will summon supply from somewhere, and if one channel of commerce is stopped, another will open. The drug problem is located here, and the answer must be found here. Belligerent snarls and growls may excite American emotions, and they may win some American votes. But if those snarls and growls are acted upon, they will plunge the United States into troubles compared with which the fentanyl problem of today will seem the least of evils. Unfortunately, it’s too late to silence the threats. They have become the price of entry to Republican politics. But it’s not too late to challenge and rebut them—and to elect leaders who understand that Mexico will be either America’s partner or America’s disaster.
   18. MIKE: For many years, I have said that the #1 foreign policy objective of the United States should be its friendly relations with Canada and Mexico. We share with those two nations the world’s longest non-militarized land border, totaling nearly 6000 miles. Over 1900 miles of that is with Mexico. It’s worth remembering how many wars in recent history have occurred between land neighbors and were expected to end quickly, but became long, bloody, and inextricable: Iraq-Iran; USSR-Afghanistan; Russia-Ukraine; No. Korea-So. Korea; Germany-France (twice!).
   19. MIKE: I coined a phrase recently: “No exit strategy survives contact with the enemy.” Republicans have never learned this about wars of choice.
   20. ANDREW: This article is a perfect example of two things: first, US imperialism, and second, modern drug policy.
   21. ANDREW: The gall of Republicans to assume “oh, we can just waltz into another sovereign nation and start killing and arresting its citizens because they send things to our nation that we don’t like”! It’s a reflection of the attitude that the US has taken to all of Latin America since at least the time of the Monroe Doctrine, with no thought for all the death and destruction that attitude has caused.
   22. ANDREW: And the depressing reality that the reason Republican voters think shooting all the cartel members will stop the drug trade is because that’s how we treat people who use drugs here in the US, and politicians from both major parties insist that it works. I think Republican politicians know full well that judgment-free harm reduction is a far better way of helping people beat addiction, but the only thing they care about is boosting their own power, and simple, prejudiced, and violent solutions appeal to their voter base the most.
   23. ANDREW: All this is to say that this article makes very good points. Unfortunately, Republican politicians are too arrogant and too self-centered to listen.
   24. REFERENCE: List of interstate wars since 1945 — WIKIPEDIA
10. World registers hottest day ever recorded on July 3; By Gloria Dickie | REUTERS.COM | July 4, 2023, 11:56 PM CDT. Updated 2 hours ago
    1. Monday, July 3, was the hottest day ever recorded globally, according to data from the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction.
    2. The average global temperature reached 17.01 degrees Celsius (62.62 Fahrenheit), surpassing the August 2016 record of 16.92C (62.46F) as heatwaves sizzled around the world. … North Africa has seen temperatures near 50C (122F).
    3. And even Antarctica, currently in its winter, … recently broke its July temperature record with 8.7C (47.6F). …
    4. Scientists said climate change, combined with an emerging El Nino pattern, were to blame.
    5. MIKE: I keep feeling the need to remind people that we are experiencing “global warming-induced climate change”.
    6. MIKE: It was famed (or infamous, depending on your point of view) Republican pollster Frank Luntz who encouraged Republicans to “drop ‘global warming for the less scary-sounding ‘climate change.’ ”
    7. MIKE: Luntz has since publicly stated his regret for his role in diminishing the idea of global warming as a real thing.
    8. MIKE: It’s amazing to me how so many people still confuse weather and climate as being the same thing. “Weather” is “the state of the atmosphere at a place and time as regards heat, dryness, sunshine, wind, rain, etc. [merriam-webster.com]” “Climate” is “the average course or condition of the weather at a place usually over a period of years as exhibited by temperature, wind velocity, and precipitation. [merriam-webster.com]”
    9. MIKE: “Global warming”, on the other hand, is when the our whole planet is on average getting hotter, even if it snowed at your house yesterday.
    10. MIKE: So remember, what the Eath is experiencing is “global warming-induced climate change”.
    11. REFERENCE: Luntz: ‘I was wrong’ on climate change — POLITICO.COM
    12. REFERENCE: Frank Luntz, the GOP’s message master, calls for climate action — GRIST.ORG
    13. REFERENCE: Explainer: How El Nino could impact the world’s weather in 2023-24 — REUTERS.COM
11. From the Thinkwing morgue of stories I’ve saved but never used, this one is from Jan 2018, but if anything is more relevant now: America’s Cultural Revolution; By Catherine Rampell, Columnist (crampell@washpost.com) | THE WASHINGTON POST | 2 Jan 2018
    1. [In December of 2017] in Shanghai, Chinese venture capitalist Eric X. Li made a provocative suggestion. The United States, he said, was going through its own “Cultural Revolution.”
    2. For those unfamiliar, Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) was a traumatic period of political upheaval, ostensibly intended to cleanse the People’s Republic of impure and bourgeois elements.
    3. Universities were shuttered. Public officials were purged. Youth paramilitary groups, known as Red Guards, terrorized civilians. Citizens denounced teachers, spouses and parents they suspected of harboring capitalist sympathies. …
    4. Li said he saw several parallels between the violence and chaos in China decades ago and the animosity coursing through the United States today. In both cases, the countries turned inward, focusing more on defining the soul of their nations than on issues beyond their borders.
    5. He said that both countries were also “torn apart by ideological struggles,” with kinships, friendships and business relationships being severed by political differences.
    6. “Virtually all types of institutions, be it political, educational, or business, are exhausting their internal energy in dealing with contentious, and seemingly irreconcilable, differences in basic identities and values — what it means to be American,” he said in a subsequent email exchange. “In such an environment, identity trumps reason, ideology overwhelms politics, and moral convictions replace intellectual discourse.”
    7. Li also pointed to the “big-character posters” — large, hand-painted propaganda slogans and calls to action — used during the Cultural Revolution to denounce purported enemies of the state and call for class struggle against them.
    8. These find a contemporary counterpart in the hashtags and public pilings-on in social media, which also frequently leverages paranoia and mob rule. Today’s big (280) character posters … often take the form of calls for resignations or collective harassment, threats of violence and attacks on adversaries as “the enemy of the American People.”
    9. Li didn’t mention these other similarities, but in both periods: Higher education is demonized. National symbols and cultural artifacts once seen as unifying, such as the Statue of Liberty and the American flag, become politicized. Specific words and ideas are stricken or banned from government communiqués.
    10. Both Mao’s decade-long tumult and today’s Cultural Revolution with American characteristics also feature cults of personality for the national leader, who thrives in the surrounding chaos. Each also gives his blessing, sometimes explicitly, for vigilantes to attack ideological opponents on his behalf.
    11. But the most troubling parallel is the call for purges. …
    12. “We are at risk of a coup d’état in this country if we allow an unaccountable person with no oversight to undermine the duly elected president of the United States,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said on the House floor in November, as he called for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III to resign or be fired. He repeated this demand on TV last week.
    13. Also last week, Rep. Francis Rooney (R-Fla.) called for a “purge” of both the Justice Department and FBI to remove the influence of the “deep state.”
    14. The more you look around, the more parallels appear. It’s almost like — stick with me here! — authoritarian, anti-intellectual, expulsionist tendencies are not confined to halfway around the world, half a century ago. Political tribalism can be fed and exploited for personal gain in any society, even our shining city on a hill. …
    15. MIKE: This was by Catherine Rampell for the Washington Post. I’ve always liked her work. She’s smart, and now we know she’s prescient. She is currently a syndicated columnist.
    16. ANDREW: 
    17. ANDREW: I feel like this story is at least partly a jab at China, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned doing this show, it’s that Western media cannot be normal about a US geopolitical rival. Largely because for many in the West, politics both domestic and international are more akin to point-scoring sports games than tools to save or condemn real people’s lives. But as for the article’s point, I think there is polarization today, sure, but there has always been polarization. Is it worse today than it was in the past? I don’t think so, no.
    18. ANDREW: I’m going to take a lot of inspiration (and maybe even quote) a Tumblr user called findingfeather. In a post, they discuss polarization in the US and how it has appeared through the years, such as with the Free Speech Zones and mass demonstrations against the Iraq War in 2005. They argue that polarization hasn’t gotten worse over time, it’s simply changed form, as current political camps lose relevance, and new camps gain more attention. This is a trend common throughout history.
    19. ANDREW: I don’t believe we are having a “cultural revolution”. I think we are enduring the latest incarnation of the right-wing, who have been eroding the status quo for their own ends for decades. That has added up. The right wing is not any more despotic than they used to be– nor any less. There are simply fewer mechanisms in law to stand in their way, and more than ever standing in the way of the left’s attempts to counter them. This is not polarization; it is institutional bias, and that is more dangerous than any polarization can be.
    20. ANDREW: Our best defense is to call this out, to tell the truth the best we can, and to come up with and take action to reverse it and build a defense against it. That defense will likely not look like the status quo that was weak against the right-wing. Time will tell if we are able to accept that enough to build it.

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