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POSSIBLE TOPICS: March 5 Primary Elections; “What’s on my Ballot?”; Changes underway at Missouri City intersection as commercial, multifamily development picks up; ‘A significant milestone:’ Carverdale landfill expansion request withdrawn; Here’s why the post office says your mail is stuck in Missouri City; Trump is turning to racism to mock Nikki Haley’s Indian name. Experts say it could backfire.; US appeals court revives Mexico’s $10bn lawsuit against gunmakers; China says experts “cracked” Apple AirDrop encryption to prevent “transmission of inappropriate information”; Xi Jinping sparks mutiny from within own military as WW3 fears erupt over Taiwan invasion; State Department responds to Putin on Alaska: ‘Certainly he’s not getting it back’; More.

Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig where we discuss local, state, national, and international stories. My co-host, assistant producer and show editor is Andrew Ferguson.

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

1. March 5, 2024 Primary Elections: com
   1. Early Vote Centers will be open from Tuesday, February 20, through Friday, March 1. (7 a.m. – 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 12 noon – 7 p.m. on Sunday).
   2. Vote Centers will accept voters from 7 a.m. – 7 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, March 5.
   3. Sample ballots are now available for the primaries. Visit the “What’s on my Ballot?” page at HarrisVotes(dot)com and enter your name or address to see all the contests and candidates you are eligible to vote on! (You can bring handwritten notes or printed sample ballots to the voting booth; just be sure to take it with you when you leave.)
   4. The deadline to apply for a mail ballot is February 23. Click here for the application. Please fill it out, print it, and mail it to our office before the deadline.
   5. We will have a joint primary this year | COM | Posted on January 16, 2024 by Charles Kuffner
2. MIKE: You might be wondering why I’m going to talk about highway interchanges in Missouri City. We’ll get to that — Changes underway at Missouri City intersection as commercial, multifamily development picks up; By Kelly Schafler | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 9:00 AM Jan 12, 2024 CST / Updated 3:35 PM Jan 16, 2024 CST
   1. New retailers, housing options and mobility projects are coming to the intersection of Hwy. 6 and Fort Bend Parkway Toll Road in Missouri City to meet the needs of the growing area. …
   2. [T]he Fort Bend County Toll Road Authority and the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County are planning a tollway extension and a future park and ride in the center. …
   3. New retail tenants and restaurants are set to join the intersection of Hwy. 6 and Fort Bend Parkway Toll Road in 2024. …
   4. Other developers are also eyeing the intersection due to the population growth happening in the area, Rodriguez said. The 1-mile area surrounding the development has seen a 24% population growth since the 2020 U.S. census, according to METRO data.
   5. [Said NewQuest Senior Vice President Andrew Alvis in an emailed statement,] “Fort Bend Town Center will be not only a major retail destination for residents, but will also serve as a transit-oriented mixed-use development with the addition of both residential units and new METRO Park & Ride facility.”
   6. More than 1,500 multifamily units are planned for the intersection, with hundreds set to break ground this year, according to information from Missouri City and developers. …
   7. [Herman Rodriguez, economic development director with Missouri City said,] “The amount of commuters who use [the toll road] allows for the density of traffic in and out of this corridor versus traffic in other corridors without a major highway.”
   8. MIKE: I’ve included a link to a map of Fort Bend County Toll Road Authority that also shows nearby Harris County Toll Road Authority tolls roads. The header of the Fort Bend web page makes it hard to see all the toll roads at once, but if you scroll around, you’ll see that we — meaning everyone who lives in and around the Great Metro Houston area — are literally surrounded by toll roads.
   9. MIKE: This is another thing that makes Texas a regressive flat-tax-state. Toll roads don’t collect money just to pay off the bonds necessary to build them. They collect money in perpetuity, and the tolls only go up.
   10. Tolls, like all regressive taxes and fees, inherently discriminate against people least able to afford them. Therefore, if you’re poor or struggling financially, toll roads not only take money that may be essential for things like food and housing, but seeking employment sometimes becomes a matter of being able to afford the tolls going to and from work, which can amount to hundreds of dollars per month.
   11. MIKE: And tolls are not cheap to collect. Collection costs are a non-trivial fraction of the tolls you pay, sometimes making them little more than employment schemes.
   12. MIKE: A classic example of this was a tollway along a stretch of the Southern State Parkway along the southern shore of Long Island in NY. “[T]here were once toll booths located on the parkway between exits 13 and 14 …”
   13. MIKE: “In July 1978, one year after the NYSDOT took over maintenance of the parkway …, the Valley Stream tollbooths located between EXIT 13 and EXIT 14 were removed. This closure came after a 20-year battle for their removal, and three years after a toll hike from 10 cents to 25 cents that angered parkway users. When signs were posted crediting Democratic Governor Hugh Carey for the removal of the booths, Long Island Republicans, who lobbied many years for their removal, were incensed.” ~ NYCROADS.COM
   14. MIKE: I can give you some backstory on that. After years of fighting against this toll segment by the New York AAA and others, it was discovered that the toll charged was just about enough to cover the cost of collecting the toll.
   15. MIKE: And note that this was a time when at least some Republicans fought against some toll roads. Now, it seems that Republicans can’t get enough of toll roads, whether they be quasi-governmental or privately owned.
   16. MIKE: The table referenced is at the end of this piece, and is from PDF page 15 of the Fiscal year 2022 Financial Report(PDF file – 4.24 MB).
   17. MIKE: For fiscal year 2021, revenues from all sources were about $551 million while all expenses were about $406 million. In other words, operating expenses consumed about 74% of all revenue.
   18. MIKE: In fiscal year 2022, after a significant toll rate hike, revenues from all sources jumped to about $809 million against total expenses of about $468 million. In other words, operating expenses still consumed about 58% of all revenue.
   19. MIKE: In both years, debt service and interest are a modest fraction of total operating expenses, approximately about 25%.
   20. MIKE: This says to me that toll roads are basically make-work jobs projects. And when the expense of collecting and administering the bureaucracy goes up or comes close to equaling toll revenue, then tolls go up.
   21. MIKE: Based on what information I can find and my observations over the years, a mile of toll roads conservatively costs the community more than double what it would cost as a simple tax-funded community good.
   22. ANDREW: Let’s remember that public jobs projects helped get the country out of the Great Depression. I think there’s plenty to criticize about toll roads, but the fact that they employ people is one of their few selling points.
   23. ANDREW: But is that enough to outweigh their negatives? Of course not. Salaries only accounted for about 16% of HCTRA’s total expenses in 2022, so there’s clearly a lot of money being spent on collecting the toll that isn’t directly benefiting people. And let’s not forget that the toll in and of itself discriminates against the poor (and with some of these toll prices, gives the middle class pause for thought too).
   24. ANDREW: Besides, I think a lot of the jobs that toll roads provide could easily transfer to Houston Public Works and TranStar. For instance, toll booth operators could provide customer service for HPW, or answer questions from the public for TranStar. I’m sure those organizations wouldn’t mind having more maintenance and engineering staff either. So long as care is taken to look after the folks doing the work, I’m sure Houston’s toll roads could become free and open with very few problems.
   25. REFERENCE: List of toll roads in the United States — From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
   26. REFERENCE: Harris County Toll Road Authority (HCTRA.org): See PDF page 15 for Income/Expenses.
3. ‘A significant milestone:’ Carverdale landfill expansion request withdrawn; By Danica Lloyd | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 1:18 PM Jan 15, 2024 CST / Updated 1:18 PM Jan 15, 2024 CST
   1. After years of protesting a proposed landfill expansion in their neighborhood, residents of the historically Black Cy-Fair community known as Carverdale are celebrating the latest update in their contested case hearing.
   2. Waste Management subsidiary USA Waste of Texas Landfills withdrew its application to expand Hawthorn Park Landfill [MIKE: MAP LINK HERE] on Jan. 11 “due to the realignment of strategic company priorities,” according to a statement from the company.
   3. Lone Star Legal Aid’s environmental justice team represented multiple Carverdale residents in a contested case hearing last year.
   4. “The Carverdale community has long been grappling with the adverse effects of the landfill, affecting residents’ health, property values and overall well-being. The withdrawal of the permit application marks a significant milestone in the fight against the environmental and social injustices inflicted upon the community,” Lone Star Legal Aid officials stated in a Jan. 12 news release.
   5. Houston Mayor John Whitmire, who advocated against the landfill expansion plans during his time as a state senator representing the Carverdale area, said this was a great victory for the community and a testament to the power of residents working collaboratively with their neighbors and elected officials. …
   6. The background — USA Waste of Texas Landfills submitted a permit in February 2021 with plans to expand the Hawthorn Park Landfill’s disposal area boundary by 32% and the maximum elevation by 63%. If approved, the facility would also be authorized to operate for another 46 years.
   7. Community Impact previously reported about 3,000 households, 330 commercial buildings, 15 churches and five educational facilities were located within a 1-mile radius of the property. Residents began to organize protests events and meetings with elected officials—including Whitmire and Houston City Council Member Amy Peck—to voice their concerns.
   8. While landfill officials at the time explained governmental entities held them to high standards, that did not stop residents from expressing concerns about their health and safety, decreasing home values, increasing traffic and debris, and a lack of transparency from the waste management company. Based on the expansion plans, the landfill was expected to take in up to 340,000 tons of waste annually once it was operating at full capacity.
   9. [Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee said,] “We don’t get a lot of wins in this space, and so what you’re seeing is representatives at various levels of government working together with the community to get a corporation to do the right thing.” …
   10. [Whitmire said in a news release,] “As Houston’s mayor, I promise to continue fighting for Houstonians whenever their quality of life is threatened. I look forward to working with the residents of Carverdale and other citizens to speak up about environmental justice issues that threaten our hardworking families. Everyone deserves a safe and healthy place to live.”
   11. USA Waste of Texas Landfills officials said the expansion could be re-evaluated in the future. …
   12. In the meantime, [Carverdale resident Myra Jefferson] said she will work with Whitmire’s office on possible solutions to prevent future efforts to expand the landfill. She hopes to have the property ultimately be designated as a brownfield so positive development can take place in Carverdale. …
   13. MIKE: Landfills are a necessary evil, and will continue to be until and unless we can find smarter ways of both creating solid waste and disposing of it. One of the things about landfills is that they may originally be built in sparsely populated areas, but development has a nasty habit of catching up to them.
   14. MIKE: In the meantime, I’m happy for the people of Carverdale and their success in this fight.
   15. ANDREW: “Waste of Texas”… this company certainly sounds like one.
   16. ANDREW: I’m glad to hear that the residents are winning this fight. No construction that comes with health risks should be allowed anywhere near a place where people live.
   17. ANDREW: The term “brownfield” was new to me, so I did a little research. Broadly speaking, “brownfield land” is defined as land that is abandoned or underutilized due to pollution from industrial use. Designating land as a “brownfield site” can enable certain legal restrictions, conditions, or incentives on redevelopment there. Often, brownfield land has to be evaluated for pollutants and cleaned up before redevelopment can happen. Putting such status on a landfill that might have health risks instead of just letting redevelopment happen normally does seem like a rather prudent move.
4. MIKE: Sometimes, a short article sends you down a research rabbit hole. That is what happened when I saw this short piece from KHOU — Here’s why the post office says your mail is stuck in Missouri City; Author: Chloe Alexander, Stephen Goin | KHOU.COM | Published: 8:35 PM CST January 10, 2024 / Updated: 7:20 PM CST January 11, 2024
   1. For about two months now, KHOU 11 has been getting dozens of emails about mail being stuck at a Missouri City USPS processing center.
   2. These emails have come from local and state residents, and even a woman living in New Hampshire whose Christmas gifts got caught in the madness.
   3. For a while, we’ve received the same response from USPS — “all mail and packages are being processed,” but on Wednesday, we got a more detailed explanation of what the USPS said is causing the delay in people’s mail.
   4. The postal service said it’s undergoing a network modernization plan in an attempt to update its “outmoded” system. The plan includes establishing Regional Processing and Distribution Centers (RPDC) and Local Processing Centers (LPC).
   5. In Houston’s case, an existing processing center on the city’s north side was recently transformed into an RPDC, and an LPC was created in Missouri City.
   6. The transition to this new system is what caused “some unintended and temporary” disruptions, according to the USPS statement.
   7. “This process, as with any such transition, takes time,” the statement continued to say. “We are taking steps to ensure packages are processed as quickly and efficiently as possible and apologize to any customers who may be experiencing issues with delivery of their items.”
   8. From the statement, it’s not made exactly clear how the introduction of an additional USPS facility ultimately slowed down processing. Read the statement in its entirety here.
   9. When we spoke to Congressman Al Green about the changes on Wednesday, he said people are still familiarizing themselves with the use of the technology necessary to move the mail efficiently.
   10. “I want to tour the plant,” Green said. “I want to see the facility. I want to get some sense of how this will all work and understand how this south facility will work with the north facility.”
   11. USPS said this modernization update is part of the company’s 10-year “Delivering for America” plan. USPS said for decades its outmoded network has created significant financial losses, increased deferred maintenance costs, deteriorated workplace conditions for employees and failed to efficiently integrate mail and package processing and delivery.
   12. USPS said the modernization update is necessary and fundamental to its continuation as an organization and a service to its customers.
5. IN AN UPDATE ON THAT STORY — USPS bringing in extra workers to help with mail delays at Houston-area processing centers, congressman says; In a statement, Congressman Green said USPS has already brought in 23 extra people to help with the backlog as well as 10 additional plant managers. Author: Chloe Alexander | KHOU.COM | Published: 2:07 PM CST January 23, 2024 / Updated: 6:23 PM CST January 23, 2024
   1. The United States Postal Service is bringing in additional personnel to help with the mail delays happening at two Houston-area processing centers, Congressman Al Green said.
   2. KHOU 11 was the first to tell you about the delays and has been reporting on it now for more than a month.
   3. In a statement sent out Tuesday, Congressman Green said USPS has already brought in 23 extra people to help with the backlog as well as 10 additional plant managers. It’s unknown if these are recently hired employees or people being brought in from other facilities in Houston.
   4. “It was indicated that they are working tirelessly to resolve mail delivery issues and to modernize mail processing for the Greater Houston area,” Green said. 
   5. The congressman said he is still requesting a tour of the Missouri City USPS plant to observe how the mail is being processed, including the process for the elections happening in March. 
   6. At first, it appeared nearly all of the delays stemmed from the sorting facility in Missouri City, but many people have told KHOU 11 that packages are also getting stuck at a processing center in north Houston. …
   7. USPS blames the “temporary” delays on a modernization of its mail and package processing network. The postal service said it’s working to process packages as quickly as possible. 
6. MIKE: My initial instinct was to automatically blame these problems on more shenanigans by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, but oddly, maybe not —
7. Louis DeJoy’s Surprising Second Act; By Eric Cortellessa | TIME.COM | March 16, 2023 @ 11:00 AM EDT
   1. Louis DeJoy thought his workday was done as he arrived home one evening in February 2022. The Postmaster General was locked in a grueling, monthslong battle with Congress over a bill to shake up the Postal Service. But as he settled in, his cell phone rang and, pulling it out, he saw who was calling and could already guess why. It was Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. The second most powerful Democrat in America wanted to know how the whip count was coming.
   2. As it happened, the count was coming along very nicely. DeJoy may be best known as the Trump-era GOP megadonor the left accused of meddling with mail-in voting to subvert the 2020 election. But by the time Schumer called him on that frigid winter night, DeJoy was on his way to convincing congressional Republicans—120 in the House and 29 in the Senate—to buy into a lengthy Democratic wish list of postal reforms. When President Joe Biden signed the landmark legislation into law two months later, it guaranteed a union-friendly version of six-day mail service and stabilized health coverage for the 650,000 USPS employees. “There’s no way we could have gotten [the] votes without Louis DeJoy,” says Jim Sauber, the chief of staff for the National Association of Letter Carriers at the time. “That’s for sure.”
   3. The notion that DeJoy, 65, would help advance a key Democratic agenda item would have seemed unfathomable a few years ago. But to the astonishment of many in Washington, the man Democrats once denounced as a threat to American democracy has become one of their most important allies in government. Defying the far right, he delivered more than 500 million COVID-19 test kits to Americans in the winter of 2022. Crossing conservatives last December, he agreed to transition the Postal Service’s entire fleet to electric vehicles by 2026. DeJoy’s capstone collaboration with Democrats was the Postal Service Reform Act, which is arguably the most bipartisan piece of major legislation in the Biden era, drawing 10 more GOP Senate votes than the $1 trillion infrastructure bill.
   4. DeJoy may be the only person on earth who could have delivered these wins for America’s beloved, beleaguered agency. That’s partly because of the perverse credibility his association with former President Donald Trump and the scandalous 2020 headlines give him with Republicans. It’s also his stubborn insistence that he wasn’t going to allow allegations levied against him in the thick of an inflammatory political season define him. …
   5. [In an interview, DeJoy … ticks off …] the details of his demonization: ad hominem attacks in the media, congressional scrutiny, lawsuits, federal investigations. Even his children needed a security detail while they were off at college. It was hell, he says, but not enough to make him quit. “I would not want to live the rest of my life if I walked away because of this [BS],” he says. “It’s that simple.”
   6. He had other reasons for staying, too. His Nixon-to-China-like efforts on the postal reform bill helped DeJoy secure a broad mandate to transform the agency. Drawing on his decades as a business executive, when he built and sold a logistics firm worth north of $600 million, DeJoy is enacting a 10-year plan—apart from the reforms—that aims to remake a delivery service that deals increasingly less with traditional mail and more with packages.
   7. The plan grows the agency, building new processing centers and centralizing the delivery network. It converts more than 100,000 part-time employees to full-time. And it adds new services, such as partnerships with local retailers to help them compete with Amazon. These potentially dramatic changes are a chief reason why the postal unions have embraced the self-made man who shares some of their blue-collar roots. …
   8. DeJoy is a prickly but flexible businessman who has at times struggled to adapt to operating within the constraints of a government bureaucracy. When he ordered postal trucks to “run on time” in July 2020, he set off a chain of events that led to a slowdown of mail delivery for weeks as trucks left their depots without any mail. The misstep helped fuel reports of attempts to undermine the 2020 election, reports that proved to be erroneous but continue to stoke distrust of him among progressives.
   9. While the unions and the Biden-appointed Democratic majority on the USPS Board of Governors have bought into his plan, there remains fierce resistance from some in Congress, largely because it raises rates and relies more on trucks than planes to move mail and packages across the country, thereby slowing down the delivery of some first-class service. He has faced multiple ethics probes, all of which appear to have been dropped. And there are plenty of Republicans who still would like to see the Post Office die through privatization.
   10. That remains a real possibility. When DeJoy started, the USPS was months away from running out of money. His mission, he says, is to make the Postal Service not only more efficient, but eventually profitable (something it hasn’t been since 2006) and to beat out FedEx and UPS, private delivery firms that pose an existential threat. Says DeJoy: “That’s what I’m trying to do: to set the organization up to compete.” He also has a personal stake in the effort. “He is fighting for redemption,” says Ron Bloom, a former Democratic member of the USPS Board of Governors. “That’s what he wants you to write whenever he rides off into the sunset— that he executed the greatest corporate turnaround in history.” …
   11. If DeJoy wanted a fix-it project, he was getting one. In April 2020, his predecessor warned that the agency was at risk of financial insolvency by the fall. When DeJoy took the helm on June 16, with the pandemic raging and demand for mail-in voting surging countrywide, it wasn’t clear the agency would be able to deliver last-minute absentee ballots in time. Trump, who despised mail-in voting, made matters worse by regularly trashing the USPS and refusing to sign the first COVID-19 relief bill until Congress removed increased funding for the agency.
   12. A month into the job, DeJoy made a consequential snap decision. He had learned that mail trucks were routinely leaving behind schedule, as drivers would wait for more mail to arrive. Even then, they were less than half full. DeJoy told his deputies to “run the trucks on time.” … There was one problem. [The trucks were running on time but, DeJoy says,] “Nobody’s telling me we’re not putting the mail on the trucks!” …
   13. DeJoy’s antagonists also started spreading allegations that he was whisking away sorting machines and iconic blue mailboxes to subvert the vote. In fact, the USPS had been cutting back the boxes for decades because of the declining use of first-class mail and the sorting machines were obsolete and had been sitting under tarps, according to Amber McReynolds, a Biden appointee on the USPS Board of Governors. …
   14. Amid the uproar, DeJoy announced he was suspending the measures “to avoid even the appearance” of impacting the election. When he testified before Congress, his image as a Trumpian villain only grew. One Democratic lawmaker asked him, “Mr. DeJoy, is your backup plan to be pardoned like Roger Stone?” DeJoy, defensive and combative, didn’t win over any adversaries. By the fall, a federal judge had said he tried to tamper with the vote, and the USPS Inspector General excoriated his operational changes to the agency.
   15. Ultimately, voting by mail was a resounding success. DeJoy embraced a union idea to expedite mail ballot delivery and set up a panel to oversee election mail. As a record 43% of Americans voted by mail, the USPS handled more than 135 million mail ballots. Roughly 94% were processed on time, and 99% made it to election boards within a week.
   16. At the start of the Biden administration, many assumed DeJoy’s days as Postmaster General were numbered. Others had different ideas. [Says Fred Rolando, then the president of the National Association of Letter Carriers,] “With all the outcry and all the Trump this and Trump that, I just saw opportunity.” Rolando and a group of union heads and key Democrats believed DeJoy’s standing with the GOP could be the ticket to passing postal reform, which a small bipartisan group of lawmakers had been pushing for years. “He presented an opportunity that wasn’t there before,” adds Rolando.
   17. Then-Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the chair of the House Oversight Committee at the time, brokered a compromise with Rep. James Comer, the Kentucky Republican, union leaders, and DeJoy. The main priority, they all agreed, was repealing a George W. Bush-era mandate that required the Postal Service to pre-pay health plans for retirees, an onerous requirement imposed on no other federal agency. It was bleeding the USPS dry. By ending the pre-funding requirement, the agency would be free of $58 billion of liabilities.
   18. Many GOP lawmakers reflexively saw the proposal as a bailout, but DeJoy was uniquely positioned to convince them it wasn’t. “The key to getting Republicans’ support, for me, was to prove to Republicans that we had the right person in place to make the reforms,” says Comer, whose grandmother was a letter carrier. “You can’t reform a government agency with a career bureaucrat.” It wasn’t easy on the other side of the aisle, either. Maloney took considerable heat from her own party for working with DeJoy. “I used to tell them: Do you want to fire him, or do you want postal reform?” she says. …
   19. DeJoy … flipped votes. “There were a lot of undecideds,” Comer recalls. “Once they listened to him talk from a business standpoint, and how he was specifically going to cut losses at the Postal Service without harming performance, I think they were sold.” The next day, the legislation passed the House with 342 votes.
   20. In the Senate, DeJoy kept in regular touch with Schumer, and the bill’s two co-sponsors, Democrat Gary Peters of Michigan and Republican Rob Portman of Ohio. Bloom, a former USPS Board of Governors member, remembers Peters telling him, “I can’t get the Republican votes without DeJoy.” It passed the 50-50 Senate with 79 votes.
   21. DeJoy’s pivotal role in breaking a 20-year logjam wasn’t enough to earn him an embrace from Biden. The White House didn’t invite him to the bill-signing ceremony until the night before. The event itself would leave the public with no clue that the Postmaster had anything to do with the bill: DeJoy wasn’t mentioned in the President’s remarks, and wasn’t on stage for the signing. He was sitting in the back of the room. …
   22. [T]here’s no longer an ethical cloud hanging over DeJoy’s head. Both the Federal Election Commission and the FBI closed investigations into him related to campaign contributions, and the USPS Inspector General said he met “all applicable ethics requirements related to disclosure, recusal, and divestment” pertaining to his holdings with Postal Service contractors upon taking the job. And the midterms went exceedingly well—99% of all 2022 election mail was delivered within three days. …
   23. DeJoy remains a favorite target of the left. Over the last three years, progressive organizations have sent out “Fire Louis DeJoy” fundraising emails like clockwork. In the last few months, Democrats like Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and groups like the Democratic Governors Association have bought Facebook ads to raise money off calling for DeJoy’s ouster. Some of DeJoy’s allies, on both the right and left, cynically suspect that some Democrats secretly relish having DeJoy in his role as a foil, especially with Trump out of office. Neither Baldwin nor the DGA responded to a [TIME Magazine] request for comment. …
   24. All the while, DeJoy’s 10-year plan to rescue the USPS is in motion. A new million-sq-ft. regional processing plant near Atlanta, set to open next year, is one of 60 such facilities he aims to launch. And the Postal Service’s financial situation is improving, he stresses, saying the USPS would have broken even in 2022 if not for inflation.
   25. Whether DeJoy succeeds will have substantial implications for not only the Postal Service, but the nation. The USPS is one of the only government agencies enshrined in the Constitution, and it has long been responsible for advancing certain social goals; its universal service obligation makes it one of the prime engines of regional equality. On DeJoy’s shoulders, in other words, is the preservation of that rare entity that reaches every American in every corner of the country.
   26. How long DeJoy will be there to oversee his plan is another matter. His tenure as Postmaster General is up to the Board—and him. DeJoy has his own metrics for success: saving the USPS may be the only way to transcend his 2020 infamy. “I hope all this stupid nonsense stuff is not on my obituary,” he tells me. In the next two or three years, he says, the USPS may be transformed enough for him to move on. “I don’t like to leave a job undone.” …
   27. MIKE: There are large chunks of this story that I had to leave out for time constraints (No pun intended). For the record, TIME is considered a generally centrist publication. I checked that because I didn’t want to read you a revisionist article from a conservative publication.
   28. MIKE: After years of horror stories about DeJoy’s reign over the USPS, I’m reluctant to let this one article persuade me that he’s a misunderstood postal saint. On the other hand, I might feel a little manipulated by previous reporting. Maybe both perspectives are true at the same time, since few of us are purely saints or sinners. Maybe we’ll have to let future events decide.
   29. ANDREW: That’s broadly how I feel, as well. Credit where it’s due, assuming this story isn’t inflating DeJoy’s importance, but let’s not take our eyes off of him yet.
   30. ANDREW: The more important part of this story, to me, is the information that the USPS apparently no longer has to prepay health plans. I never heard anything about that, or the Postal Service Reform Act that made it happen. And that law is nearly two years old! Sure, there was some reporting on it, but given that the financial kneecapping of the USPS has been emblematic of the Republican approach to government for years now, I think the mainstream media gave this news nowhere near the coverage it deserved. To borrow some cynicism from the article, I wonder if that was intentional… but I doubt we’ll ever know.
   31. REFERENCE: Biden Administration Derelict on Postal Nominations; By: Paul Steidler, Lexington Institute | FEDWEEK.COM | Published: July 14, 2023
   32. REFERENCE: Board of Governors of the United States Postal Service — From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
   33. REFERENCE: Postal Regulatory Commission — From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
   34. REFERENCE: Time: Why Louis DeJoy is still Postmaster General and has become key Democratic ally for postal reform — COM/THREADS) Thread starter Blader, Start date Mar 16, 2023
8. MIKE: You’ve probably heard by now that Trump won New Hampshire’s primary. The margin is being spun as good news for “never Trumpers” because the margin of his win wasn’t a blowout. This story was published two days earlier — Trump is turning to racism to mock Nikki Haley’s Indian name. Experts say it could backfire.; Analysis by Lloyd Lee | BUSINESSINSIDER.COM | Jan 21, 2024, 6:29 PM CST
   1. He’s doing it again.
   2. Donald Trump is reaching for racism against his political opponent — this time, against former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
   3. On Friday, the former president and the frontrunner for the Republican Party posted on his Truth Social account an attack against Haley, repeatedly referring to her as “Nimbra,” a play on her birth name, Nimarata Nikki Randhawa. Haley is the daughter of Indian immigrant parents.
   4. It’s difficult to say what Trump is referencing here, whether this is one of his many spelling errors or a deliberate sign of disrespect.
   5. The same week, he referred to Haley as “Nimrada” and, before that, lobbed “birther” claims, saying that she is ineligible to run for president because her parents were not US citizens when she was born. He’s also referred to her as “birdbrain,” mocking Haley’s intelligence. …
   6. Trump is no stranger to racially charged name-calling against his rivals and those whom he may view even as a remote threat. The tactic is so par for the course that Wikipedia has dedicated an entire page to the “List of nicknames used by Donald Trump.“
   7. When asked for comment on the story, Trump’s spokesperson, Steven Cheung, told Business Insider in an email: “Sounds like those who take offense are engaging in fake outrage. They should get a life and live in the real world.” …
   8. MIKE: There’s more, but why bother? I included this as an FYI piece. Trump is a horrible person, and most of the people we’ve heard of that work for him seem to be horrible people. Spokesperson Steven Cheung appears to be no exception.
9. US appeals court revives Mexico’s $10bn lawsuit against gunmakers; By Bernd Debusmann Jr | BBC NEWS, WASHINGTON | 23rd January 2024, 09:47 CST (TAGS: US gun violence, US gun laws, Mexico, United States)
   1. Mexico claims that as many over 500,000 US guns are trafficked into Mexico each year.
   2. A US appeals court has ruled that a $10bn lawsuit filed by Mexico against US gun manufacturers can go ahead, reviving a long-running legal battle.
   3. Mexico’s government argues that the “flood” of illegal guns across the border is a result of “deliberate” business practices by the US gunmakers.
   4. A lower court had dismissed the case in late 2022, prompting an appeal from the Mexican government.
   5. The gun industry’s trade association has denied any wrongdoing.
   6. Among the companies named in the lawsuit are Smith & Wesson, Glock, Beretta, Barrett, Sturm and Ruger.
   7. Mexican authorities allege that tens of thousands of US-manufactured guns are trafficked south across the border each year, providing drug cartels with easy access to massive arsenals used to fight each other and the Mexican government. Some estimates put the total at over half a million weapons each year.
   8. More than 30,000 people were murdered last year in Mexico, which has extremely restrictive gun laws. The country is home to only one gun shop, housed in a Mexico City military complex.
   9. The lawsuit, which was first filed in 2021 in a federal courthouse in Massachusetts — where several of the companies are based — argued that the manufacturers knew that guns were being sold to traffickers fuelling violence in the country.
   10. But in 2022 a US federal judge dismissed the case on the grounds that the gun manufacturers were protected by a 2005 law known as the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. The law, also known as the PLCAA, shields gunmakers from damages “resulting from the criminal or unlawful misuse” of their products.
   11. Mexico’s government swiftly appealed, arguing that the law only applies to injuries that take place in the US and does not protect the defendants — which include seven manufacturers and one distributor — from liability.
   12. On Monday, a US appeals court ruled that the Mexican lawsuit “plausibly alleges a type of claim that is statutorily exempt” from the PCLAA, which only covers lawful gun sales.
   13. Mexican and gun control advocates in the US quickly claimed the ruling as a victory, with Mexican Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena calling it “great news” on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
   14. In a statement, Jon Lowy, the president of Global Action on Gun Violence — who serves as Mexico’s co-counsel on the case — said that the ruling is a “huge step forward in holding the gun industry accountable for its contribution to gun violence, and in stopping the flood of trafficked guns to the cartels.”
   15. “Not only did the Court recognize the right of another country to sue U.S. gun companies, it also pierced the unfair legal shield that gun companies have been hiding behind since 2005,” he added.
   16. Larry Keane, the senior vice-president and general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade group that represents the US firearms industry, defended the manufacturers.
   17. “Mexico should spend its time enforcing its own laws [and] bring Mexican criminals to justice in Mexican courtrooms, instead of scapegoating the firearm industry for their unwillingness to protect Mexican citizens,” he wrote on X.
   18. ANDREW: At first glance, it might seem like holding gun manufacturers accountable for illicit gun sales doesn’t make sense. Surely the general public mostly buys guns from dealers, rather than the manufacturers themselves, right? According to the NRA, yes. But this doesn’t mean that every dealer is doing all that they can to stop their guns from being sold illegally, or that every manufacturer is vetting the dealers they sell to as much as they could. If there is any negligence on the part of the manufacturers — and that is an if; I’m not making any accusations — then I think it would make perfect sense to hold manufacturers partly responsible for any harm caused by illegally-sold weapons.
   19. ANDREW: Now, I wouldn’t consider myself a supporter of gun control — I believe that the working class needs to be competitively armed in order to reliably be able to resist exploitation and other harm by capital and the state. And yet, I still think this lawsuit is reasonable, and I hope it succeeds. The US has played a major role in creating most of the world’s destabilized regions, and these illicit gun sales only make those situations worse. That means more people who have done nothing wrong are put at risk, harmed, or killed. That can’t be allowed to continue, and gun manufacturers have a responsibility to help stop it.
   20. MIKE: I think an important argument in the story that describes the lawsuit is that “the “flood” of illegal guns across the border is a result of ‘deliberate’ business practices by the US gunmakers.”
   21. MIKE: In other words, as I understand it, the manufacturers have some responsibility in the marketing, advertising, product placement, and regulatory compliance in how their weapons are sold and used. This creates a potential liability problem for them.
   22. MIKE: What’s particularly interesting is that this suit is being brought by a foreign government, which may bypass some of the legal protections that would normally apply to US citizens trying to sue manufacturers.
   23. MIKE: I have disagreed with Andrew’s stance on gun regulation before, so I won’t belabor it, but I see his argument as akin to the NRA’s claim that you need good guys with guns to protect us from bad guys with guns. I would feel a lot safer overall if there were simply lots fewer guns and more restrictions on carrying them in public places.
   24. ANDREW: I think my argument is clearly different from the one you’re citing, but you’re entitled to your opinion.
10. China says experts “cracked” Apple AirDrop encryption to prevent “transmission of inappropriate information”; COM/SACRAMENTO | January 10, 2024 / 2:57 AM PST / AFP
    1. Chinese state-backed experts have found a way to identify people who use Apple’s encrypted AirDrop messaging service, according to the Beijing municipal government. AirDrop allows users to send content to Apple devices in close proximity without an internet connection, encoded so they cannot be viewed by other people.
    2. The service was widely used by participants in pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019 that China’s central government eventually quelled.
    3. Apple also limited file-sharing for Chinese iPhone users in 2022 following protests against the ruling Communist Party’s stringent zero-COVID policy.
    4. The Beijing municipal government’s justice bureau said experts at the Beijing Wangshen Dongjian Justice Appraisal Institute in the capital had devised a way to reveal an iPhone’s encrypted device log.
    5. From there, they could identify an AirDrop user’s phone number and email accounts, the Monday statement on the bureau’s website said.
    6. It said the technique “cracked the tough technological problem of the transmission of inappropriate information with anonymous traceability via AirDrop.”
    7. The method also “raised the efficacy and accuracy of case detection and resolution, and has effectively helped police ascertain several case suspects.”
    8. The statement did not mention whether the technique had led to any arrests or convictions. …
    9. There were widespread reports in late 2022 that people in China were using AirDrop to spread digital leaflets critical of the government. …
    10. In November of that year, Apple released an AirDrop update that meant users of Apple smartphones in China could only opt-in to receive files from unknown contacts during a 10-minute window before it automatically shuts off. The feature did not previously have a time limit.
    11. The update made it virtually impossible to receive unexpected files from strangers.
    12. Apple has long faced criticism for making perceived concessions to Xi’s increasingly repressive China. …
    13. MIKE: As a septuagenarian, I rarely use Apple’s AirDrop. In fact, I barely know what and where it is, but I can see its usefulness, especially in any sort of conspiracy. But I guess it’s a truism that codes are meant to be broken.
    14. MIKE: As Mr. Spock said in the Star Trek episode, “The Enterprise Incident”: “Military secrets are the most fleeting of all.”
    15. ANDREW: I don’t know that I’d consider Apple’s encryption to be a “military secret”, but I think we can paraphrase Spock here and say that “secrets are fleeting”.
    16. MIKE: Well, encryption secrets, then.
    17. ANDREW: This article is bad news for the same reason that the FBI’s attempt to compel Apple to break the iPhone’s encryption in 2016 was bad news. When digital security and privacy are compromised anywhere, they’re compromised everywhere, for everyone. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before someone uses this hack against someone outside of China as well.
11. Xi Jinping sparks mutiny from within own military as WW3 fears erupt over Taiwan invasion; Some experts are worried by Xi’s increasing warlike rhetoric, while others say he may be exercising caution following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. By Jacob Kessler | EXPRESS.CO.UK | 15:50, Mon, Jan 15, 2024 | UPDATED: 15:55, Mon, Jan 15, 2024
    1. Chinese President Xi Jinping is locked in a power struggle with his own military, as he seeks to purge commanders he perceives as unwilling or unprepared for war, according to military analysts.
    2. The ongoing tension reflects Xi’s efforts to assert control over the military and ensure its readiness for potential conflicts.
    3. Since assuming power in 2012, Xi has implemented extensive military reforms, including personnel reductions, enhanced military-civilian cooperation, and structural reshaping.
    4. The latest development occurred on December 29, 2023, when Xi dismissed nine senior officers, triggering speculation about the reasons behind the abrupt decision.
    5. While corruption is often cited as a motive for such dismissals, Gordon Chang, a senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute, told Business Insider that Xi’s primary focus is on removing officers who are hesitant about going to war.
    6. Chang points to instances like the suspension of Chinese Air Force General Liu Yazhou, who cautioned against a Taiwan invasion and received a suspended death sentence in 2022.
    7. Joel Wuthnow, a senior research fellow at the National Defense University, told Business Insider that the removal of senior commanders aligns with Xi’s concerns about the quality of personnel and equipment developed over the past decade. The dismissed officers were part of China’s Rocket Force, a crucial component in potential military campaigns.
    8. China has been involved in low-level hostilities with neighboring countries, including India, Japan, the Philippines, and Taiwan.
    9. The heightened rhetoric, particularly concerning Taiwan, has raised concerns internationally. Xi’s New Year’s address emphasized China’s determination for reunification. Furthermore, as reported by NBC, at Xi’s meeting with President Biden, he indicated China’s intention to take control of Taiwan.
    10. While some argue that Xi may exercise caution following Russia‘s invasion of Ukraine, Chang warns of the conditions for a third world war. With conflicts in various regions, Xi’s actions could drag Western countries into a broader global conflict.
    11. Chang told Business Insider: “Remember, in the 1930s, there were separate wars that merged into what we now call World War II. The same dynamics exist today, and it’s entirely possible, and some people can even argue that it’s probable that these will merge into a global conflict.”
    12. As tensions escalate and Xi Jinping consolidates power within the military, the international community watches closely, wary of the potential consequences of a China increasingly assertive on the global stage.
    13. MIKE: Chang’s last quote is one you should remember: “in the 1930s, there were separate wars that merged into what we now call World War II. The same dynamics exist today, and it’s entirely possible, and some people can even argue that it’s probable that these will merge into a global conflict.”
    14. MIKE: This is the dangerous spiral that I fear we are in. A few years ago, I thought that a major war would begin with conflict around Taiwan and the South China Sea. I went so far as to say that it felt like we were in a pre-war era. A couple or so years later, Russia launched a major invasion of Ukraine. I admit that is not one that I saw coming, but it’s increasingly looking like that invasion has set us on the path of a profoundly destabilizing period in history.
    15. MIKE: Two years after the Russian invasion, we now have sparks of war in varying degrees of intensity around the Middle East, possibly poised to extend as far as south Asia.
    16. MIKE: I recently saw the US referred to as the main pole in a multipolar world. There may be many government and non-government entities who see the US as being increasingly extended — some might think over-extended — creating an opportunity that didn’t exist two years ago for expansion of influence, power, or territory.
    17. MIKE: Sadly, we are living in interesting times.
    18. ANDREW: In my opinion, if the US extending its reach got the world into this mess, maybe the US pulling back will get it out. Not all at once, and not leaving allies in the lurch, of course. Part of pulling back should include preparing nations who rely on US military presence to stand on their own two feet, including by selling local bases and hardware to the host nation at bargain prices(!). There is, of course, risk that such allies still won’t be ready to leave the nest, no matter what Washington does. But how does that risk compare to one of world war?
    19. ANDREW: The US has an opportunity now to make controlled, reasoned decisions about where to focus geopolitically. I think it would be wise to take that opportunity today. Otherwise, we might wake up tomorrow to find that war has chosen the next area of focus for us.
    20. MIKE: I can see how you might have that view, having grown up knowing nothing but the post-9/11 world, but the United States is not the source of all the bad things happening in the world. I believe that the US created a postwar rules-based order that arguably has avoided many serious wars.
12. State Department responds to Putin on Alaska: ‘Certainly he’s not getting it back’; by Miranda Nazzaro – 01/23/24 11:45 AM ET. (Tags: Alaska russia Vladimir Putin)
    1. The State Department on Monday brushed off reports of Russian President Vladimir Putin ordering his government to look into the nation’s former “real estate” abroad, saying Alaska would be staying in American hands.
    2. Putin signed a new decree last week to allocate funds for the research and registration of Russian property overseas, including that in former territories of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union, Russian state media TASS reported.
    3. The decree, which comes amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, did not specifically mention Alaska, though it caught the attention of military bloggers, who argued Putin was using the decree to declare the 1867 Russian sale of the Last Frontier State to the U.S. is illegal.
    4. “Well, I think I can speak for all of us in the U.S. government to say that certainly he’s not getting it back,” [said] State Department principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel … during a Monday press briefing, prompting laughter from his audience.
    5. The Institute for the Study of War last week noted the “exact parameters of what constitutes current or historical Russia property are unclear.”
    6. “The Kremlin may use the ‘protection’ of its claimed property in countries outside of its internationally recognized borders to forward soft power mechanisms in post-Soviet and neighboring states ultimately aimed at internal destabilization,” the institute wrote in an assessment of the Russian offensive campaign.
    7. It pointed to a Telegram post from a military blogger who suggested Russia could start enacting the law in Alaska and parts of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia.
    8. Putin, in a 2014 question-and-answer with a studio audience, called the 1867 sale “inexpensive,” and argued people should “not get worked about it.” …
    9. … Russian lawmaker Sergei Mironov in December hinted at Moscow reclaiming its previous territories in the future.
    10. “Did you want a new world order? [he said.] “Receive and sign. Venezuela annexed a 24th state, Guyana-Essequibo. This is happening right under the nose of the once great hegemon of the United States. All that remains is for Mexico to return Texas and the rest. It’s time for Americans to think about their future. And also about Alaska,” Mironov wrote on X, formerly Twitter, last month.
    11. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev joked about the State Department’s response later Monday, writing on X, “According to a State Department representative, Russia is not getting back Alaska, which was sold to the U.S. in the 19th century. This is it, then. And we’ve been waiting for it to be returned any day. Now war is unavoidable,” with a laughing emoji attached.
    12. MIKE: Considering that everyplace was once part of someplace else, this inference should not be taken as strictly a laughing matter. In fact, the postwar rules-based order was established by the US with precisely these sorts of revanchist territorial claims in mind. It’s the reason that Germany doesn’t claim back pre-war western Poland or Russian Kaliningrad, that Poland doesn’t claim back pre-war western Ukraine, or that Finland doesn’t currently make claims against the territory taken by the USSR in the Winter War of 1940, for a few examples.
    13. MIKE: Especially in these times, there is nothing funny about implied government claims on the territory of one country by another. All it takes for such jokes to become reality are time and opportunity.
    14. ANDREW: Potential casus belli certainly should be taken seriously, but I’d rather have Russian diplomats laughing about this than fuming over it. Especially when the State Department is willing to joke about it, too. Laughing about something helps defuse tension over it, and when those opportunities present themselves in global politics today, we should take them. Especially when tension in geopolitics often increases the chances of something kicking off. We can still keep an eye out for possible trouble in the future, but laughing about it now means we don’t have to obsessively worry that that trouble will come, either.
    15. MIKE: Here’s something to laugh about. At their closest points, Russia and Alaska are only a mile apart, and during the winter, when the Bering Straits are frozen, native peoples walk back and forth. And during WW2 Japan actually invaded and took a couple of Aleutian Islands. Nothing is impossible to imagine.
    16. REFERENCE: Aleutian Islands campaign — From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    17. REFERENCE: Kaliningrad Oblast — From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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1. Make sure you are registered to vote! VoteTexas.GOV – Texas Voter Information
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