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

1. Everything you need to know before voting for Houston’s new mayor in November election; COM | Tuesday, August 22, 2023/ 1:29PM
   1. MIKE: This is a really comprehensive article about Houston elections: Who’s running for what (including mayor, city controller), and all city council positions.
   2. “Has my district changed? What district am I in? Your district for voting for your city councilmember may have changed since the last election. The city council approved new district boundaries on Oct. 12, 2022 as part of the redistricting process after the 2020 federal census. Houstonians can visit the city’s redistricting website to view maps and determine which council district they reside in. …”
2. League City police installing cameras along major roadways to catch, deter criminals; By Jake Magee | 8:35 AM Aug 29, 2023 CDT | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | Updated 10:03 AM Aug 29, 2023 CDT
   1. League City officials want residents, especially drivers, to be aware of a new technology on city streets that will make it easier to catch and deter criminals. Several cameras from the company Flock Security, a private security camera company, have been installed across the city to read license plates, and they’re already helping police solve crimes, said Harold Lee, League City Police Department captain.
   2. Beginning in December, League City police began installing Flock cameras along major roadways in the city. Officials declined to say exactly where they were installed so as to not tip off would-be criminals.
   3. The cameras are positioned to capture the license plates of vehicles driving away from them. Scanned license plates are kept on file for 30 days before automatically being deleted.
   4. Police can use the technology to see if a vehicle matching a desired license plate has passed any of the cameras in the past month, which helps police in their investigations, Lee said.
   5. For instance, police were investigating a murder on the city’s east side and, using Flock cameras from other agencies, determined a vehicle was following the victim before their death, which led to solving the case, Lee said.
   6. “That was our first big lead,” Lee said, adding how many other agencies in the Greater Houston area use Flock cameras was a major selling point to him.
   7. In addition to solving crimes, the cameras may help police find missing people, such as children and elders, and deter crime from occurring. If criminals know League City has Flock cameras, they may decide to take their criminal activity elsewhere, Lee said.
   8. As of Aug. 24, police had installed 26 cameras across League City. A total of 42 cameras will be installed.
   9. Each camera costs $2,500 per year, Lee said, for a total annual cost of $105,000.
   10. This doesn’t include the homeowners associations and private businesses working with police to get their own Flock cameras. The Mar Bella HOA has received four Flock cameras, and other HOAs and businesses will soon receive their own as well, Lee said. …
   11. Lee said he understands some may be concerned this technology will be used to spy on residents. Lee assured the public that’s not the case.
   12. “I understand the reasoning behind it, but we’ve put in some safeguards to make sure that doesn’t happen,” he said.
   13. Police can’t enter the Flock database without investigating a high-level case. Therefore, the cameras will be used only for major crimes, not small things such as speeding or parking tickets, Lee said.
   14. Additionally, the cameras don’t have facial recognition technology. In fact, that concern is why cameras were deliberately positioned to scan the backs of vehicles passing instead of approaching vehicles, Lee said. …
   15. ANDREW: While I appreciate that there was an attempt to mollify privacy concerns, I’m still not fully convinced that this news is good for the people of League City. 
   16. ANDREW: I don’t know of any way these cameras can feasibly only capture the license plates of cars driving away without also capturing people nearby and cars approaching in the oncoming lane. I’m also not particularly convinced of League City PD’s willingness to enforce its own access restrictions to these cameras or truly ensure the cases officers try to class as “high-level cases” are really sufficiently major. I would give more credence to that restriction if it was made clear that another government agency was controlling that access. If I were a League City resident, I would not be happy at this news.
   17. ANDREW: I’m also curious whether this program is compliant with state laws in Texas that I believe ban red-light cameras? There may be just enough difference in the technology or the stated uses of the cameras for them to be legal, but I wonder if the city is vulnerable to a lawsuit over this program.
   18. MIKE: You make some good points, Andrew. I think I can address a couple of them.
   19. MIKE: Houston and other municipalities in Texas and elsewhere have tried so-called “red light cameras”. The issue was whether a fine can be issued for a car where the driver might not be readily identifiable, since the fine is supposed to be applied to the driver, not the vehicle. I believe that this application has been almost universally outlawed by legislatures or overturned in courts.
   20. MIKE: The photo of the rear license place rather than the front plate is another outgrowth of this issue. If you’ve ever seen a photo of a car that has not paid a toll, this is how they invoice you. The photo is usually taken with a strobe flash for clarity, day or night. The driver can’t be seen, but the license plate is usually clear. As a matter of fact, some folks have taken to putting license plate frames with holographic film over their plates to defeat the cameras. The plates can usually be read by a human, but the camera sees only the distortion. In many cases, these covers have been made illegal.
   21. MIKE: But I think the key thing — as I understand it — is that anything or anyone in public is subject to being filmed or photographed under most circumstances. This is supposed to apply to civilians, public officials, and cops, for example. Of course, in the United States, anyone can sue over almost anything, so there’s also that.
3. Harris County voters to decide on $2.5B bond for hospital, clinic expansions; By Melissa Enaje | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 3:25 PM Sep 4, 2023 CDT
   1. In November, Harris County voters will have to decide whether or not to fund a $2.5 billion expansion of the Harris Health System over the next 10 years in a move that could expand health care access for more than 1 million uninsured residents.
   2. The bond is part of HHS’s 2021-25 Strategic Facilities Plan. If approved by voters, the bond is estimated to raise monthly property taxes by less than $6 after 10 years for the owner of a home valued at $300,000, according to Harris County budget office projections. Additional investments are also expected to come from grants, philanthropy and operational cost savings.
   3. If approved, the bond funding would allow HHS to:
      1. Replace and renovate Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital in northeast Houston with a new hospital adjacent to the existing hospital, including 390 acute care beds, for a total capacity of at least 600 beds at both hospitals
      2. Extend the lifespan and capacity of Ben Taub Hospital in the Texas Medical Center by at least 10 years
      3. Create a new community clinic in precincts 2, 3 and 4
   4. HHS President and CEO Dr. Esmaeil Porsa said the need is urgent and the effects are long term because the hospitals have failing infrastructure and the county population is rapidly growing. …
   5. In one year, HHS serviced:
      1. 854,313 clinic visits
      2. 147,496 emergency room visits
      3. 193,727 telehealth clinic visits
   6. Texas has the highest rate of uninsured people in the country with 18% of the state lacking health insurance, compared to an 8.8% national average, according to the 2021 American Community Survey. For Harris County, the data also shows 21.8% are uninsured, and nearly 1 in 4 people in Houston is without health insurance. … Both hospitals are operating at over 90%-100% daily occupancy.
   7. For low-income families in Harris County, accessing health care is challenging, particularly for those without health insurance, according to HHS data. Research by public health experts has found that low-income families face consequences when they are unable to access health care, including:
      1. Uninsured patients coming in for late-stage diseases, including cancer
      2. Poor diabetes control
      3. Higher mortality rates
      4. Avoidable hospitalization
   8. When it comes to need, the county’s poverty rate is higher than the national average at 16.4% for all age groups, compared to 12.8% nationwide, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
   9. In Harris County, Black and Hispanic residents are overrepresented in the poverty populations. Census data shows those living below the federal poverty level are 23% Black as well as Hispanic or Latino at 19.6%, compared to white residents at 8%.
   10. Patricia Cabrera serves on the board of the Spring Branch Community Health Center. Cabrera said while she is familiar with the health inequities that affect working Latino families, she wants to clear a misconception when it comes to this demographic.
   11. “This affects the working poor, working families,” Cabrera said. “The prosperity of this city really does depend on the same population. It’s a fairness, equity issue.”
   12. She said working Latino families often don’t receive health care benefits from their employers, but they are the main people at job sites working to complete building projects or construction throughout the county.
   13. [One thing that HHS President and CEO Dr. Esmaeil Porsa] emphasized at the Aug. 18 Harris County Commissioners Court meeting was if the bond gets approved, each project has various phases that are expected to be carried out over several years.
   14. “A couple years ago, LBJ Hospital was facing such serious infrastructure failures that we actually considered closing down the hospital,” Porsa said. “So at that point, my board instructed me to actually start planning the LBJ replacement knowing that at some point we were going to come to this day.” …
   15. Baylor College of Medicine President Paul Klotman said at the Aug. 18 meeting that the need for these facilities is urgent.
   16. “The facilities are inadequate, whether we’re talking about bed numbers, operating rooms, recovery space, Level I trauma capacity,” Klotman said. “We’re behind. This bond election is an investment in the future for Harris County and the city of Houston.”
   17. ANDREW: I wouldn’t be paying for it, but it sounds like a very worthy expense to me. Expansions to HHS would likely also benefit communities surrounding Houston as well. If hospitals in, for example, my hometown of Pearland get full up for a particular kind of treatment or service, having more modern and larger facilities at HHS hospitals in Houston proper could provide somewhere for patients to be redirected to, bringing money from outside into Harris County businesses. Aside from that, though, it’s just good for communities to take care of their people. The tax increase from this bond seems eminently reasonable to me. I hope it passes.
   18. MIKE: I agree that this is an unmitigated good. Anyone in a $300 thousand house who objects to a $6/year increase in their property taxes to pay for an important public health bond should probably be beneath contempt. But I may have to revisit that opinion after the election.
4. Ken Paxton impeachment trial begins with sniping: “Slow creep of corruption” vs. “nothing of significance”; After senators rejected the suspended attorney general’s bid to dismiss all accusations against him, lawyers for both sides laid out their cases and impeachment managers called their first witness. by Robert Downen and Kate McGee | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | Sept. 5, 2023 / Updated: 8 hours ago
   1. Accused of allowing the “slow creep of corruption” to taint his office, impeached Attorney General Ken Paxton fired back Tuesday as his lawyers disparaged the impeachment case against him as a dangerous exercise based on “ignorance, innuendo and outright lies.”
   2. Paxton’s impeachment trial before the Republican-dominated Texas Senate began with a series of highly anticipated votes on Paxton’s multiple bids to dismiss every article of impeachment. All 16 motions were soundly defeated.
   3. Paxton succeeded in another key early decision when Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, acting in his role as trial judge, ruled that the suspended attorney general could not be forced to testify during impeachment proceedings.
   4. MIKE: That was a key decision by Patrick on what had been a major question of the impeachment trial protocol. The question was whether this trial was going to be handled as civil, as criminal, or as political? In civil, a defendant can be compelled to testify. In criminal, a defendant cannot be called to testify but may volunteer to do so. In a political trial such as impeachment, the rules are whatever the senate decides it to be. Going on with the story:
   5. Called before the Senate for only the third impeachment trial in Texas history, Paxton stood on the Senate floor beside his lead lawyer, Tony Buzbee, who pleaded not guilty to all 16 articles of impeachment on Paxton’s behalf. …
   6. While Paxton’s lawyers used all but one minute of their allotted hour to attack minute details of the accusations, Murr used only 17 minutes to address what he called the “slow creep of corruption” that Paxton introduced into the attorney general’s office — offering few details that weren’t already outlined in about 4,000 pages of documents that were filed with the Senate late last month.
   7. [Speaking on behalf of House impeachment managers, who presented opening statements first, Rep. Andrew Murr, R-Junction] took aim at claims that Paxton’s team has used to question the legitimacy of the trial — including arguments that Paxton can’t be impeached for conduct that predated his most recent election in November, or that his conduct had to be criminal to warrant his removal from office.
   8. “Wrongs justifying impeachment don’t have to be crimes. Wrongs justifying impeachment are broader than that because they have the purpose of protecting the state, not punishing the offender,” Murr said.
   9. Tuesday afternoon, impeachment managers called their first witness …
   10. [A]fter opposing lawyers spent a lengthy amount of time debating whether certain exhibits were permissible in the court proceedings, Patrick abruptly adjourned the trial for the day shortly before 5 p.m, cutting [a witness’s] testimony short. The trial is expected to resume at 9 a.m. Wednesday.
   11. MIKE: There’s lots more detail in the Tribune story, but what I love is the accusation by MURR of a “slow creep of corruption” in Paxton’s office. In the opinions of many, the “creep of corruption” under Paxton has been anything but slow. It has also been remarkably petty, with Paxton trying to wangle or extort even tiny illegal freebees, such as $12.50 for a personalized license plate, or taking home a $45 cake that was supposed to be for an office party.
   12. MIKE: And let’s remember that even before he was first elected, Paxton was under Texas state investigation for “failing to register as a securities advisor and committing securities fraud.” [See reference below] Almost Paxton’s entire tenure as attorney general has been dogged by investigations, fines, indictments, and allegations of petty theft.
   13. MIKE: This wasn’t a “slow creep of corruption”. It was a gallop.
   14. MIKE: And the straw that broke the metaphorical camel’s back that brought us to an impeachment trial was when Paxton tried to have the State pay a settlement to hide marital infidelity.
   15. MIKE: So none of Paxton’s other crimes and alleged crimes were enough to impeach him, but billing the Texas treasury to hide his affair was the metaphorical “bridge too far” for the “law and order” Republican Party of Texas.
   16. ANDREW: Murr’s comment that stuck with me was the trial having “the purpose of protecting the state, not punishing the offender”. I was surprised to hear this come out of the mouth of a Republican. I certainly agree that this should be the objective of Paxton’s trial; it’s only fair. I just think it should also be the objective of every trial, and the criminal legal system as a whole. Unfortunately, when crimes are committed by people with far less institutional power than Ken Paxton has, lawmakers seem to want to be as vindictive as possible.
   17. REFERENCE: LSP Memo: Ken Paxton’s Long Record of Corruption and Obstruction — LONESTARPROJECT.NET, 2020/10/07
5. US military leaders say Tuberville is aiding US adversaries with hold on military nominations; By Haley Britzky, Shawna Mizelle and Mary Kay Mallonee | CNN | Updated 9:47 PM EDT, Tue September 5, 2023
   1. The three US military service secretaries went on the offensive against Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville over his ongoing hold on senior military nominations in an interview with CNN on Tuesday, saying he is aiding communist and autocratic regimes, and being used by adversaries like China against the US.
   2. “Our potential adversaries are paying attention,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told CNN’s Jake Tapper alongside Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro and Army Secretary Christine Wormuth in an exclusive joint interview for “The Lead.” “It is affecting how they view the United States and our military capabilities and support for the military. This needs to stop.”
   3. Kendall said that at an embassy event in Washington, DC, an Air Force general officer was “taunted” by a Chinese colonel “about the way our democracy was working.”
   4. Del Toro echoed the same concerns, saying that as someone “born in a communist country, I would have never imagined one of our own senators would actually be aiding and abetting a communist and other autocratic regimes around the world.” …
   5. The three spoke a day after they wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post in which they said the months-long standoff is “putting our national security at risk.”
   6. The unusual public intervention from the secretaries in a congressional political dispute reflects the frustration felt at the highest levels of the US military over Tuberville’s holds, which have been in place for six months. …
   7. Tuberville, of Alabama, has delayed the confirmations of more than 300 top military nominees over his opposition to the Pentagon’s policy of reimbursing service members and their families who have to travel to receive abortion care. In the Senate, one senator can hold up nominations or legislation, and Tuberville’s stance has left three military services to operate without a Senate-confirmed leader for the first time in history. …
   8. In July, Tuberville posted on X, “I didn’t start this. The Biden admin injected politics in the military and imposed an unlawful abortion policy on American taxpayers. I am trying to get politics out of the military.”
   9. Tuberville says the Pentagon is violating law with the reproductive health policies that include, among other things, a travel allowance for troops and their families who must travel to receive an abortion because of the state laws where they are stationed. Pentagon officials have pointed to a Justice Department memo that says the policies are lawful.
   10. The holds first began in March and Tuberville has held his ground despite mounting public pressure. …
   11. MIKE: So this is another example of Senate disfunction where a minority — whether of 40 or in this case, a minority of 1 — can clog the wheels of government.
   12. MIKE: It’s important to understand that this is in accordance with current Senate rules. And it’s just another example of why rules and laws are in frequent need of review and revision.
   13. MIKE: It’s human nature for some individuals to find workarounds to legal constraints or regulations. Many Senate rules were designed to prevent tyranny of the majority, and often had their places when used sparingly. It’s under Senator Mitch McConnell’s Republican leadership that the rules have been used for constant obstruction of the opposition’s majority.
   14. MIKE: Let’s be clear that reforming these rules to facilitate majority rule in the Senate would not be an unadulterated benefit to Democrats. As Mitch McConnell has often pointed out, it would be a double-edged sword when the Republicans are in power. But some kinds of reforms are obviously needed.
   15. MIKE: Time limits, “talking filibusters”, maybe quotas-per-Congress are among the possibilities. Another idea has been rounding up 41 “NO” votes to block debate instead of needing 60 “YES” votes to pass it. That would at least change the rule from a “passive filibuster” to an “active” filibuster” that would actually require affirmative action by the minority.
   16. MIKE: But remember that it will ultimately come down to who’s metaphorical “ox is gored” in each Congress.
   17. ANDREW: First, a quick note: “Communist” and “autocratic” are oxymorons. Just like how a nation calling itself “democratic” doesn’t make it so, a nation calling itself “Communist” doesn’t make it so. And, as we’ve seen with recently departed administrations, the US isn’t the most objective source on what nations are even “autocratic” in the first place.
   18. ANDREW: With that out of the way, I have no particular love for the US military. I don’t mind that this nomination process is being held up. I do, however, take issue with why it’s being held up. Tuberville and the Republican Party’s opposition to abortion is ridiculous, misogynistic, and draconian. It is infuriating that they take this stance. But it is baffling to me that Tuberville would be willing to stand in the way of the military for it. The Republican playbook is half-built on bending over backwards for the military. I would think that doing anything to go against it would be political suicide for a Republican. 
   19. ANDREW: This whole situation leads me to believe one of two things is going on: either Tuberville has backed himself into dying on a hill he wasn’t planning to, or he feels so strongly about taking away people’s control of their own bodies that he’s willing to risk his re-election chances for it. I don’t know what’s going through his mind, and I’m not sure I could comprehend it if I did know. But whatever his reasons, this situation has a real chance of coming back to bite him, and I hope it does just that.
6. Return of US nuclear weapons to UK would be an escalation, says Russia; By Julian Borger and Andrew Roth | THEGUARDIAN.COM | Tue 5 Sep 2023 13.07 EDT, Last modified on Tue 5 Sep 2023 21.31 EDT
   1. The Russian foreign ministry has said Moscow will view any move to return US nuclear weapons to the UK as an escalation and will respond with “countermeasures” for its own security.
   2. The foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova was responding to a report last week about an item in the 2024 US air force budget for building a dormitory at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk for personnel on a “potential surety mission” – military jargon for nuclear safety and security. It raised the prospect of the return of US nuclear weapons to British soil for the first time in more than 15 years.
   3. “If this step is ever made, we will view it as escalation, as a step toward escalation that would take things to a direction that is quite opposite to addressing the pressing issue of pulling all nuclear weapons out of European countries,” Zakharova said.
   4. “In the context of the transition of the United States and Nato to an openly confrontational course of inflicting a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia, this practice and its development force us to take compensating countermeasures designed to reliably protect the security interests of our country and its allies.”
   5. The US is estimated by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) to have 100 B61 gravity bombs deployed in Europe and another 100 B61s – the only tactical weapon in its arsenal – in storage in the US. If US nuclear weapons were sent back to Lakenheath, they would almost certainly be a modernised version of the B61.
   6. FAS estimates Russia has 1,816 tactical, or non-strategic, weapons (shorter range and intended for use in battle rather than for the destruction of whole cities).
   7. These have been held until now in storage facilities, but Vladimir Putin announced in June that some nuclear warheads would be deployed in Belarus within a month. There has so far been no confirmation by western intelligence that they have been moved. …
   8. Matt Korda, a senior research fellow at the FAS nuclear information project who first spotted the US budget item for a surety dormitory at Lakenheath, said: “While the potential return of US nuclear weapons to UK soil certainly merits scrutiny, it’s a bit rich to see it coming from a government who has spent the past year initiating the exact same thing with Belarus.
   9. “It’s highly unlikely that the Russian government would describe its own nuclear sharing arrangements in Belarus as escalatory or destabilising and yet the parallels between the two situations are clearly visible.”
   10. MIKE: I think Matt Korda summarized my view on this Russian complaint succinctly. It is, however, a good example of how an action can lead to a retaliation which leads to a retaliation-to-the-retaliation, and so on. At some point, one party has to stop the escalation and begin a retreat, or you get the top of the metaphorical escalator; this usually a place that no one actually wants to reach.
   11. MIKE: Reasonable people may disagree on who should go first or stop first, but the logic appears to be irrefutable.
   12. ANDREW: Exactly what I was going to say, Mike. And, I would say, what I’ve been arguing throughout the invasion of Ukraine. You can’t control what other people do, but you can control your response. If you don’t be the bigger person—or in this case, country—and stop escalating at some point, then there’s no guarantee your adversary will do it for you.
   13. MIKE: Except that Russia invaded Ukraine without provocation, so any weakening of resolve by the West in aiding Ukraine would amount to a precedent-setting victory for Russia in winning territory by force. This would be a globally destabilizing form of appeasement.
   14. ANDREW: There’s a difference between “weakening resolve” and “not escalating”. Weakening resolve is pulling out. Not escalating is choosing not to resupply existing troops with cluster munitions and depleted uranium rounds. It’s about restraint. That restraint keeps civilians alive, and keeps a regional conflict from becoming all-out world war. Or, it would, if the US was showing it. Luckily, it’s not too late to start.
   15. MIKE: I think that as usual, this brings me back to the Vietnam War analogy. In this analogy, Ukraine is Vietnam; Russia is the US; NATO is China and USSR. China and the USSR wanted North Vietnam to win, but they were perfectly happy to incrementally ratchet up their aid just enough to keep North Vietnam from either losing, or winning too fast. The US increased its military engagement incrementally so as not to provoke a wider war with China, as happened in Korea.
   16. MIKE: From a geopolitical perspective, the USSR-China strategy was infuriatingly effective in doing long-term damage to the US militarily, economically, and internationally. Not to mention the additional bloodshed.
   17. MIKE: My only complaint about NATO aid to Ukraine is that it has been increased too slowly, creating a long-term meatgrinder for both Ukraine and Russia. That may be a feature rather than a bug in NATO policy.
   18. And as the US has learned more than once, and Russia is now learning, no exit strategy survives contact with the enemy.
   19. REFERENCE: Munich Agreement (1938) — From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
7. ‘A wall of BRICS’: The significance of adding six new members to the bloc; By Sumayya Ismail | ALJAZEERA.COM | Published On 24 Aug 2023
   1. The BRICS bloc of top emerging economies have taken a major step in expanding its reach and influence with the announcement that six more nations have been invited join as new members.
   2. Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been invited to join as full members from January 1 next year.
   3. The bloc, which was formed in 2009 with Brazil, Russia, India and China, first expanded to admit South Africa in 2010.
   4. Now, it is says it is seeking to grow a stronger coalition of developing nations who can better put the interests of the Global South on the world’s agenda. …
   5. “It is hard to find commonalities among the six countries invited to join BRICS other than that they are each significant states in their region,” Danny Bradlow, a professor with the Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship at the University of Pretoria, told Al Jazeera.
   6. With the inclusion of Saudi Arabia, Iran, UAE and Egypt, “you could argue it’s very Middle East centric”, according to Sanusha Naidu, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Global Dialogue, a South African think tank focusing on China and Africa.
   7. “This has geo-economic, geostrategic and geopolitical implications,” Naidu argued, saying the latest additions will push some BRICS nations to think more about their Middle East policies, and for China and India to beef [up their] existing policies. …
   8. Crucially, Naidu argued, the expansion list is “very energy centric”, adding that following the announcement, some analysts at the venue even facetiously commented if they should “call it BRICS plus OPEC?”. …
   9. “Besides Russia, all of [the core BRICS countries] are non-energy producing countries. They need to be able to make their economies function, but they don’t want to get caught in the secondary collateral damage of sanctions,” she explained.
   10. The use of “unilateral sanctions” against countries and the continued dominance of the US dollar in global trade is something BRICS has vocally challenged.
   11. The expansion “opens up new avenues for trade”, said Karin Costa Vasquez, a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for China and Globalization in Beijing.
   12. One of the aims behind the planned expansion is “creating opportunities for BRICS nations to trade more easily with one another using local currencies”, Vasquez added. …
   13. [Na’eem Jeenah, a senior researcher at the South African think tank, Mapungupwe [: “mah-PUN-gup way”] Institute for Strategic Reflection] said, “We must be careful about attributing more importance to this expansion development than it actually has … [I]t certainly does not make BRICS into a Global South front. It’s just a club of 11 members.”
   14. However, he added that, as yet, BRICS has not been trying act as a political forum, but that could change.
   15. “More scary [for the West] than the six who were chosen is that 40 expressed interest in joining,” he said. “BRICS is engaging in incremental expansion … So where does it go in 30 years time?
   16. “While hype of de-dollarisation isn’t on the horizon, the fact is that in a few years time, two of three largest economies in the world could be trading with each other within the [BRICS] bloc without the US dollar, that would be cause for some concern.”
   17. MIKE: The article goes into considerably more detail in terms of geopolitical and geoeconomic analysis. I think the next article puts some meat on the bones of what this grouping could mean in terms of global economic influence.
8. How Much Oil & Commodity Expanded BRICS Control?; By Vinod Dsouza | WATCHER.GURU | September 3, 2023
   1. … The expanded BRICS controls these commodities in the global sector: 75% of the world’s Manganese; 50% of the globe’s Graphite; 28% of the world’s Nickel; [and] 10% of Copper
   2. Also, with the inclusion of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other oil exporters, the extended BRICS now controls 42% of the global oil supply. …
   3. If BRICS begins to settle trade in a new currency, the U.S. dollar will not be used for these many transactions among member nations. This puts the U.S. economy under pressure as the dollar could find fewer means to fund its deficit. If the White House does not act quickly by setting new frameworks to tackle BRICS, the traditional world order could be in jeopardy. …
   4. MIKE: So BRICS could eventually represent a real threat to the US dollar’s dominance, which would have a significant impact on the US’s dominance to the world geopolitical and geo-legal order. (BTW, “geo-legal” is used in various company names but is not a proper word. Yet.)
   5. MIKE: To give you an idea of how tumultuous this would be, consider that the value of the US dollar is irrationally high among world currencies. There are many reasons for this which would be a separate discussion, but the main for long-term concern is that a drastically depreciated dollar would mean rampant inflation and possibly economic calamity in the US, especially if it was sudden.
   6. MIKE: If you don’t think this is possible, consider that the British pound was once worth US$5. Before WW2, it was still about US$3. Now it’s about $1.26. That’s near historic lows, and it hasn’t done the average Brit any good.
   7. MIKE: So we can’t just dismiss BRICS as a non-threat. Remember that it took OPEC only about 13 years from its founding in 1960 to get a virtual stranglehold on oil supplies.
   8. ANDREW: With the interest other nations have shown in BRICS, it may end up being the economic equivalent of NATO: expanding uncomfortably close to the US sphere of influence. That would be a sight.
   9. ANDREW: I fully expect the US to try and stop other nations from joining BRICS by making them choose between trading with the bloc or trading with the US. Perhaps Washington might appeal to the World Trade Organization, or lean on the World Bank to put the squeeze on nations that choose BRICS over the US.
   10. ANDREW: But I’d rather see the US try and best BRICS through good old-fashioned free-market competition. If there is a big push to revitalize manufacturing in the US, that could be pitched to potential BRICS members as a big opportunity for trade that they won’t get if they join the bloc. BRICS offers would get better to compete, and the rest of the world benefits by getting more out of their trade deals, no matter who they make them with. Rising tide, all boats. As an added bonus, bolstering domestic manufacturing would reduce the US’s reliance on trade with China, something that many politicians and commentators here are very concerned about.
   11. ANDREW: I would also prefer to see more investment in the social safety net in the US in order to fight off the potential impact of a weakening dollar. I feel that would end up being more effective than going on the offensive anyway.
   12. ANDREW: I’m no economist, so I’m sure there’s holes all through my fantasy here, but then I see plenty of holes in actual US policy pretty frequently too. Maybe it’s not as far-fetched as it seems. The question of how the US will respond to a changing international economic order is still up in the air, and I think I’ll dream about what could be while I still have the chance.
   13. MIKE: I think there’s some good analysis there, Andrew. We need a bigger pie rather than a zero-sum game.
   14. REFERENCE: OPEC — From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
9. China signals Xi Jinping will not attend G20 summit in India; Analysts say absence could be snub to Delhi or part of apparent push by Beijing to elevate blocs not regarded as US-dominated. Helen Davidson in Taipei ( @heldavidson) | THEGUARDIAN.COM | Mon 4 Sep 2023 07.45 EDT, Last modified on Mon 4 Sep 2023 21.30 EDT
   1. Xi Jinping’s attendance at the G20 this weekend has been all but ruled out after China’s foreign ministry announced the team would be led by the country’s premier, Li Qiang.
   2. It will be the first time a Chinese leader has not attended the G20 leaders’ summit since the first was held in 2008, although Xi attended only virtually in 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic.
   3. The US president, Joe Biden, said last week that he hoped Xi would attend the summit in Delhi, but US officials played down the chances of the two leaders meeting after reports that Xi’s attendance was in doubt.
   4. Analysts suggested Xi’s absence could be a snub to the host country, India, with which China is embroiled in border disputes. It could also be part of an apparent push to elevate other multilateral groups over those seen as US-dominated.
   5. Xi most recently travelled to the Brics summit in South Africa, a bloc the Chinese leader is pushing as an alternative to western-led groups such as the G20 and G7. …
   6. “Xi’s skipping the west-heavy club of G20 right after attending the Brics summit may be a visual illustration of Xi’s narrative of ‘east is rising, and the west is falling’,” said Wen-ti Sung, a China expert and political scientist at the Australian National University.
   7. Sung said it could also be to avoid meeting Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, “at the height of its propaganda campaign against Japan’s Fukushima wastewater release”, or an act of solidarity with the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, who is also not attending the G20. Putin is subject to an international criminal court arrest warrant for war crimes. …
   8. China and the US are in a battle for influence in the Indo-Pacific, but neither Xi nor Biden have attended the Asean summit this week.
   9. “Xi Jinping is setting his own agenda where his top concern is national security and he has to stay in China and make foreign leaders visit him instead,” Alfred Wu, an associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, told Reuters. …
   10. MIKE: I probably won’t live long enough to see how all this geopolitical multipolar jockeying turns out, and maybe I don’t want to, but we are certainly living through interesting times. Dammit.
10. Japan may seek to dissolve Moonies church in wake of Shinzo Abe killing; Japanese media report the courts may be asked to disband the Unification church amid criticism of ruling party’s ties to organization. By Justin McCurry in Osaka | theguardian.com | Mon 4 Sep 2023 01.21 EDT, Last modified on Mon 4 Sep 2023 11.56 EDT
    1. Japan’s government may ask courts to order the dissolution of the Unification church following the assassination in July last year of the former prime minister Shinzo Abe, according to multiple local reports.
    2. The church, whose members are known colloquially as Moonies, could be subject to a court order to disband as early as next month, pending the completion of an inquiry into the group’s controversial fundraising activities, according to the Kyodo news agency, which cited an unnamed government source.
    3. The Asahi Shimbun newspaper quoted unnamed sources as saying the government has concluded that dissolution would be appropriate given that the church had engaged in “vicious, organised and continued” activities that outweighed considerations of religious freedoms enshrined in the constitution.
    4. Under Japan’s religious corporations law, a court can issue a dissolution order if an organisation has committed acts that are “clearly recognised as being substantially detrimental to public welfare”.
    5. Groups that are dissolved are stripped of their status as a religious corporation, losing their exemption from corporate and property taxes, as well as a tax on income from monetary offerings, according to the Mainichi Shimbun.
    6. But it could operate in a new incarnation. …
    7. Some members of Kishida’s party have reportedly cautioned against dissolution, however, fearing that the government could be accused of trampling on religious freedoms.
    8. Abe, whose grandfather, former prime minister Nobusuke Kishi, helped the ultra-conservative church establish a presence in Japan in the 1960s, was shot dead in July 2022 by a man who has said he harboured a grudge against the Unification church and Abe. …
    9. MIKE: This isn’t such a different problem from the US. When do churches engage in enough political activity to lose their 501(c)3 tax-exempt status? And what are the political repercussions of appearing to side against a religion, or actually siding against a religion? And when is perception the same as reality?
    10. MIKE: In the US, there are many pastors saying political, hateful, and even inciteful things. I’m sure it’s happened, but a cursory search doesn’t find any churches that have actually lost their 501(c)3 status for such activity.
    11. ANDREW: I had assumed the Westboro Baptist Church would have, but even they have managed to hang onto their nonprofit status. I guess that just goes to show how much harm the Unification Church has done that they’re facing consequences the WBC never has. I would be glad to see the church dissolved.
    12. REFERENCE: Churches, Integrated Auxiliaries, and Conventions or Associations of Churches — IRS.GOV
    13. REFERENCE: These 20 churches supported political candidates. Experts say they violated federal law. — TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG, 2022/11/07
    14. REFERENCE: The Washington Times — From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (“The Washington Times is an American conservative^[3][4][5][6] daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., that covers general interest topics with a particular emphasis on national politics. … The Washington Times was founded in 1982 by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate associated with the Unification Church which also owns newspapers in South Korea, Japan, and South America, as well as the news agency United Press International (UPI).^[23]”)
11. Spreading State Restrictions on China Show Depths of Distrust in the U.S.; Businesses fear that efforts to look tough on Beijing, which have the potential to be more expansive than moves by the federal government, could have unintended consequences. By Alan Rappeport, Reporting from Washington | NYTIMES.COM | Aug. 21, 2023, Updated 4:09 p.m. ET
    1. At a moment when Washington is trying to reset its tense relationship with China, states across the country are leaning into anti-Chinese sentiment and crafting or enacting sweeping rules aimed at severing economic ties with Beijing.
    2. The measures, in places like Florida, Utah and South Carolina, are part of a growing political push to make the United States less economically dependent on China and to limit Chinese investment over concerns that it poses a national security risk. Those concerns are shared by the Biden administration, which has been trying to reduce America’s reliance on China by increasing domestic manufacturing and strengthening trade ties with allies.
    3. But the state efforts have the potential to be far more expansive than what the administration is orchestrating. They have drawn backlash from business groups over concerns that state governments are veering toward protectionism and retreating from a longstanding tradition of welcoming foreign investment into the United States.
    4. Nearly two dozen mostly right-leaning states — including Florida, Texas, Utah and South Dakota — have proposed or enacted legislation that would restrict Chinese purchases of land, buildings and houses. Some of the laws could potentially be more onerous than what occurs at the federal level, where a committee led by the Treasury secretary is authorized to review and block transactions if foreigners could gain control of American businesses or real estate near military installations.
    5. The laws being proposed or enacted by states would go far beyond that, preventing China — and in some cases other “countries of concern” — from buying farmland or property near what is broadly defined as “critical infrastructure.”
    6. The restrictions coincide with a resurgence of anti-China sentiment, inflamed in part by a Chinese spy balloon that traveled across the United States this year and by heated political rhetoric ahead of the 2024 election. They are likely to pose another challenge for the administration, which has dispatched several top officials to China in recent weeks to try to stabilize economic ties. But while Washington may see a relationship with China as a necessary evil, officials at the state and local levels appear determined to try to sever their economic relationship with America’s third-largest trading partner.
    7. “The federal government in the United States, across branches with strong bipartisan support, has been quite forceful in sharpening its China strategy, and regulating investments is only one piece,” said Mario Mancuso, a lawyer at Kirkland & Ellis focusing on international trade and national security issues. “The shift that we have seen to the states is relatively recent, but it’s gaining strength.”
    8. One of the biggest targets has been Chinese landownership, despite the fact that China owns less than 400,000 acres in the United States, according to the Agriculture Department. That is less than 1 percent of all foreign-owned land.
    9. Such restrictions have been gathering momentum since 2021 after Fufeng USA, the American subsidiary of a Chinese company that makes components for animal feed, faced backlash over plans to build a corn mill in Grand Forks, N.D. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States [CFIUS], a powerful interagency group … that can halt international business transactions, reviewed the proposal but ultimately decided that it did not have the jurisdiction to block the plan. However, the Air Force, citing the mill’s proximity to a U.S. military base, said this year that China’s involvement was a national security risk, and local officials scuttled the project.
    10. Since then, states have been developing or trying to bolster their restrictions on foreign investment, in some cases blocking land acquisitions from a broad set of countries, including Iran and North Korea. In other instances, they have targeted China specifically.
    11. The state moves, some of which also include investments coming from Russia, Iran and North Korea, have raised the ire of business groups that fear the rules will be too onerous or opponents who view them as discriminatory. Some of the proposals wound up being watered down amid the backlash.
    12. This year, Texas lawmakers proposed expanding a ban that was enacted in 2021 on the development of infrastructure projects funded by investors with direct ties to China and blocking Chinese citizens and companies from buying land, homes or any other real estate. Despite the support of Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, a Republican, the proposal was scaled back to prohibit purchases of just agricultural land, quarries and mines by individuals or companies with ties to China, Iran, North Korea and Russia. The bill ultimately expired in the Texas Legislature in May.
    13. In South Dakota, Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, has been pushing for legislation that would create a state version of CFIUS to review and investigate agricultural land purchases, leases, and land transfers by foreign investors. Ms. Noem has argued that the federal government does not have sufficient reach to keep South Dakota safe from bad actors at the state level.
    14. The legislation failed amid pushback from farming groups that were concerned about restrictions on who could buy or rent their land, along with lawmakers who said it would hand too much power to the governor.
    15. One of the most provocative restrictions has been championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican who is running for president. In May, Mr. DeSantis signed a law prohibiting Chinese companies or citizens from purchasing or investing in properties that are within 10 miles of military bases and critical infrastructure such as refineries, liquid natural gas terminals and electrical power plants.
    16. But the legislation is written so broadly that an investment fund or a company that has even a small ownership stake from a Chinese company or a Chinese investor and buys a property would be violating the law. Business groups and the Biden administration have criticized the law as overreach, while Republican attorneys general around the country have sided with Mr. DeSantis.
    17. The Florida legislation, which targets “countries of concern” and imposes special restrictions on China, is being challenged in federal court. A group of Chinese citizens and a real estate brokerage firm in Florida that are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union sued the state in May, arguing that the law codifies and expands housing discrimination. The Justice Department filed a “statement of interest” arguing that Florida’s landownership policy is unlawful.
    18. A U.S. district judge, who heard arguments about the case in July, said last week that the law could continue to be enforced while it was being challenged in court.
    19. The restrictions are creating uncertainty for investors and fund managers that want to invest in Florida and now must decide whether to back away from those plans or cut out their Chinese investors. …
    20. [J. Philip Ludvigson, a partner at King & Spalding and] a former Treasury official who helped lead the office that chairs CFIUS, added: “You might want to get tough on China, but if you don’t really think through what the second- and third-order effects might be, you could just end up hurting your state revenues and your property market while also failing to solve an actual national security problem.”
    21. The state investment restrictions also coincide with efforts in Congress to block businesses based in China from purchasing farmland in the United States and place new mandates on Americans investing in the country’s national security industries. The Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of the measures in July, which still need to clear the House to become law.
    22. The combination of measures is likely to complicate diplomacy with China and could draw retaliation.
    23. “Officials in Beijing are quite concerned about the hostility to Chinese investments at both the national and state levels in the U.S., viewing these as another sign of rising antipathy toward China,” said Eswar Prasad, a former head of the International Monetary Fund’s China division. “The Chinese government is especially concerned about a proliferation of state-level restrictions on top of federal limitations on investments from China.”
    24. He added, “Their fear is that such actions would not just deprive Chinese investors of good investment opportunities in the U.S., including in real estate, but could eventually limit Chinese companies’ direct access to American markets and inhibit technology transfers.”
    25. ANDREW: This is a sign of the normalization of xenophobia in the US. There is no justification for these laws targeting Chinese investors—there is no national security benefit, and states passing these laws are putting their economies at a disadvantage. But because US foreign policy has decided “China bad” and mainstream media has bought into that without seriously examining it, it is becoming more acceptable within both major political parties to pass laws shooting ourselves in the foot for the sake of feeling a little less vulnerable to some imagined hostile Chinese takeover. It’s deeply concerning for the state of our society and the standards we expect from our lawmakers.

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1. Make sure you are registered to vote! VoteTexas.GOV – Texas Voter Information
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2. BE REGISTERED TO VOTE, and if eligible, REMEMBER TO FILL OUT AND MAIL NEW MAIL-IN BALLOT APPLICATIONS FOR 2023.
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