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

“There’s a reason why you separate military and police. One fights the enemy of the State. The other serves and protects the People. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the State tend to become the People.” ~ Commander Adama, “Battlestar Galactica” (“WATER”, Season 1 episode 2, at the 28 minute mark.)

“Let me warn you and let me warn the Nation against the smooth evasion which says, “Of course we believe all these things; we believe in social security; we believe in work for the unemployed; we believe in saving homes. Cross our hearts and hope to die, we believe in all these things; but we do not like the way the present Administration is doing them. Just turn them over to us. We will do all of them- we will do more of them. We will do them better. And, most important of all, the doing of them will not cost anybody anything.” ~ FDR”s “Let me warn you” remarks [1m 0s]. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0haNUUcqwI] [TEXT AT: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-the-democratic-state-convention-syracuse-ny]

Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig, now in its 14^th year on KPFT from Houston 90.1-HD2, Galveston 89.5-HD2, Livingston/Goodrich 89.9-HD2, and Huntsville 91.9-HD2. KPFT is Houston’s Community radio.

And welcome to our international listeners from Belgium, Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Norway, and elsewhere.

On this show, we discuss local, state, national, and international stories that may have slipped under your radar. At my website, THINKWINGRADIO-dot-COM, I link to all the articles I read and cite, as well as other relevant sources. Articles and commentaries often include lots of internet links for those of you who want to dig deeper. I do try to fact-check myself and include the links I use to do so.

It’s the 50^th week of Trump’s military occupation of Washington DC; and 39 weeks since those states’ governors deployed National Guard troops to Memphis, Tennessee and New Orleans, Louisiana, at Trump’s request, which is where they remain for now.  

The next gubernatorial election in Tennessee is in about 3 months, and I can’t wait to see how that turns out.

LAWFARE has a chart of where US troops are currently stationed around the US. The link is in this show post at ThinkwingRadio[.]com.

Due to time constraints, some stories may be longer in this show post than in the broadcast show itself. 

1. I have a little more news on the Cyclospora outbreak that I think is interesting. From KSL.COM in SALT LAKE CITY, UT — Cyclospora outbreaks start with human contamination. Nobody has ever been able to figure out how; By Brenda Goodman, CNN | KSL.COM in SALT LAKE CITY, UT | Posted – July 25, 2026 at 11:15 a.m.  TAGS: Science, Health, S., Cyclospora, Cyclosporiasis, FDA Investigations, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Contact Tracing,
   1. As cases of explosive diarrhea continue to rise across the U.S. this summer, health officials are grappling with a longstanding question about the tiny parasite that’s behind all this torment: Just how the heck is poop getting into our food?
   2. The appalling truth about Cyclospora is that humans are its lone source. It’s only ever been found in human feces. So if it’s in our food or water, [Dr. Mark Moorman, who recently retired as director of the Office of Food Safety at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said,] “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist or a microbiologist to overthink this. … Humans are the source.”
   3. And here’s another unsettling thing about Cyclospora: Investigators have never definitively identified the cause of an outbreak.
   4. In several cases, they’ve found some strong suggestive evidence that puts Cyclospora close to produce growing or processing, but they’ve never identified how the poop is entering the agricultural system in the first place.
   5. That question is becoming more pressing, however, as the U.S. contends with its largest ever Cyclospora caseload, which has swelled to more than 11,500 confirmed and suspected cases across 41 states, according to the CDC.
   6. These are cases that were acquired in the U.S., rather than from travel abroad, which makes this year unusual.
   7. [Generally, about 1 in 5 cases is acquired during international travel. Said Dr. Keith Schneider, a professor of food safety at the University of Florida,] “Typically, we only see 2,000 to 4,000 a year, so this is a pretty big spike.”
   8. Cases of cyclosporiasis tend to rise during the summer months. This year, the FDA has launched investigations into six outbreaks. The largest of these is a nine-state outbreak in the Midwest believed to be linked to iceberg lettuce grown in Mexico. The FDA recently announced that it is looking into another cluster of 72 related cases that doesn’t yet have a known source.
   9. [Typically, the U.S. might investigate one or two outbreaks of cyclosporiasis each year. Said Dr. Kali Kniel, a professor of microbial food safety at the University of Delaware,] “We’ve not seen anything like this. … I think we’re looking at an unusual year with multiple outbreaks happening at the same time.”
   10. … Many times, these investigations close without – shall we say – solid leads.
   11. [Retired director of the Office of Food Safety Moorman said,] “We just don’t have much in the way of success stories to say, ‘Ah, got it, smoking gun.'”
   12. In 2013, for example, an FDA investigation into a cyclosporiasis outbreak linked to salad mix processed by Taylor Farms de Mexico failed to find the parasite in its testing but noted that the medical records of harvesting workers showed that they had taken antidiarrheal medications or the combination antibiotics that are used to treat cyclosporiasis. Those medications can be used for other reasons too, however, and no diagnoses were recorded in the records that were inspected by the FDA.
   13. Cyclospora outbreaks are difficult to investigate in large part because of the parasite itself. People who ingest tainted food or water don’t get sick right away. It can take up to two weeks for the cramping, nausea, watery diarrhea and bloating to start. By the time people realize that their symptoms aren’t going away and seek medical attention, it may be three weeks to a month after exposure.
   14. Lab testing a stool sample to confirm the illness also takes time. Then, the case has to be reported to a local health department, which has to call the person to interview them about what they might have been exposed to.
   15. Most people are notoriously bad at recalling what they ate for breakfast, let alone what they may have eaten a month ago, so contact tracers often pull in electronic records from shopper cards and bank statements to help fill in the picture. All that data must then be analyzed to look for a common exposure.
   16. This summer, iceberg lettuce stood out as the most likely suspect in the largest outbreak, but several other clusters still don’t have a suspected source.
   17. Most of this work is done by state health departments, and in the case of a multi-state outbreak like this one, state health departments working in conjunction with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [the CDC].
   18. After the CDC feels confident that its data points to a source, agency experts turn the investigation over to the FDA. The FDA then traces the food back to a supplier and ultimately to the farms that grew it. A team will do an environmental assessment, where the investigators walk a farm and take thousands of samples of soil, water and produce for testing.
   19. By the time FDA inspectors actually make it to a farm, however, the outbreak is usually over.
   20. [Said Dr. Kali Kniel, a professor of microbial food safety at the University of Delaware who teaches a class in outbreak investigation,] “All of that time is really tricky. … By the time you do that, these products with shelf lives are gone, and they’re not being grown or harvested anywhere.”
   21. … It’s rare for lab tests to ever find Cyclospora parasites in the environment. But they did in 2020, during an investigation into Fresh Express bagged salad kits that were linked to more than 700 cyclosporiasis cases across 14 states that summer.
   22. Many food safety experts feel that these detections were the nearest anyone has come to pinpointing the source of an outbreak.
   23. [Said Dr. Moorman, who oversaw the investigation for the FDA,] “It’s about the closest that I’m aware of, where we had a clue, and it’s where in canal water we pulled up the Cyclospora pathogen.”
   24. The Fresh Express salad kits contained iceberg lettuce, carrots and red cabbage, leading to investigations into multiple farms that grew the vegetables. Eventually, the FDA conducted a full environmental assessment at a farm in Florida that grew red cabbage for the mix. The agency’s testing identified Cyclospora in two samples taken from a canal that the farm used for irrigation.
   25. But lab testing for Cyclospora is complex, as the FDA acknowledged in a warning letter to Fresh Express.
   26. [FDA Agency staff wrote that,] “Given the emerging nature of genetic typing methodologies for this parasite, the FDA has been unable to determine conclusively if the Cyclospora detected in the canal is the cause of this outbreak. … However, water and soil contaminated with fecal matter may act as a vehicle of transmission for [Cyclospora cayetanensis]“
   27. Fresh Express did not respond to CNN’s request for comment on the FDA’s testing.
   28. [MIKE: I think that this is a good place to note that the fact that they found samples of Cyclospora at a Florida farm means that it’s unfair to see Mexican or other imported produce as the sole potential sources for these outbreaks. The problem is more widespread than that. Continuing …]
   29. [Dr. Moorman said that even] with the test results, they were never able to figure out how feces might have been getting into the canal in the first place.
   30. Most experts believe that water contaminated with Cyclospora is the vehicle that puts the parasite on produce.
   31. [Said Dr. Jennifer McEntire, a microbiologist who consults with food companies on their safety practices,] “Water is number one. … Now, how that water gets contaminated with human fecal material is another question.”
   32. It’s not likely that anyone is using the bathroom directly into irrigation water, McEntire says, but unintentional contamination of water could be a factor.
   33. Most farms supply portable toilets or bathroom trailers to workers in the fields. Could waste emptied from those have ended up in the canal? Did a septic tank in the area leak or break, allowing waste to seep in? Did heavy rainfall cause a sewer system to overflow?
   34. McEntire said it’s possible that sick workers might spread the parasite as they handle food, but she thinks that’s less likely.
   35. It’s difficult for her to imagine that one sick person or even a harvest crew could contaminate so much produce that it would make this many people ill, she said. “But that’s the other route, a slightly more direct route, going back to the people themselves versus the water.”
   36. [Dr. Moorman] felt like it was enough evidence to urge the members of the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association to do more testing of irrigation water and produce during the growing season.
   37. But that’s all he could do.
   38. There’s no law or rule that requires farms to test irrigation water or produce for Cyclospora, Moorman said.
   39. “It’s voluntary,” he said. With few exceptions, “we don’t have those levers at the FDA.”
   40. Big companies that purchase produce, such as Kroger, Food Lion or Costco, could require their suppliers to test for it, he said, and that might help prevent outbreaks.
   41. The government could also pass laws to require testing for Cyclospora and could allocate more funding to research this parasite and the infection it causes.
   42. For her part, Kniel, at the University of Delaware, says she’s just glad that people are finally paying attention.
   43. [Said Kniel,] “I’ve actually asked every year when there are 2,000 cases of this, ‘Why does no one care? Why are we not talking about it?'”
   44. MIKE: I think that Dr. Kniel’s question at the end of this story is the perfect conclusion.
   45. MIKE: Why have we not done more work and spent more money trying to understand how this parasite enters the food chain and made a greater effort to prevent it, rather than every year simply responding to thousands of outbreaks?
   46. MIKE: For fiscal conservatives out there for whom the human suffering may not be sufficient justification for these expenditures and research, let’s look at it from an economic perspective.
   47. MIKE: Money spent on better understanding and prevention saves the country money spent on doctors and emergency room visits, while also improving productivity and reducing sick days at work.
   48. MIKE: Cyclospora may not justify a Manhattan Project-like expenditure on the order of cancer, but this is a common and nasty illness, and I think it deserves much more scientific attention into causation than it’s been getting.
2. On a completely different subject, I’ve always been a big believer in offering kids and young adults the best possible education, but sometimes that can involve things outside of formal schooling and developing the skills necessary to take the maximum advantage of educational opportunities can come from unusual places. I ran across a discussion of the virtues, or lack thereof, of letting kids read comic books, which today are given the grander title of “graphic novels”. I have opinions on this subject, and once even had this discussion with the parent of a kid I was tutoring. From Joseph Malozzi, a well-known producer of TV and film, mostly but not entirely in the science fiction & fantasy genres, there’s this piece. It’s called — On Comic Books!; Joseph Mallozzi’s Weblog | May 26, 2026. TAGS: Reading, Literacy, Comic Books, Graphic Novels, Gateway Reading, Reading Skills,
   1. [Mallozzi] wrote the following in response to someone who claimed that graphic novels do not improve a child’s reading ability: Comic books were my gateway to reading. I would buy stacks of them on release and devour them throughout the week. I eventually expanded to the science fiction novels my mother would gift me: Asimov, Clarke, Ellison, Blish. In elementary school, I read The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, filling a spiral notebook with assiduous notes on every act of every play (That notebook still sits on a shelf in my parents’ basement). As an adult, I read hundreds of books a year. I’m a professional writer with over 350 hours of produced television to my credit. And it all traces back to comic books.
   2. Someone asked if comic/graphic novels could actually accomplish this.  [Mallozzi’s] response: Will do what, exactly? Introduce youngsters to the joy of reading? Serve as a launch pad to other forms of reading: short stories, novels, fiction and non-fiction? Continue to entertain, provoke, and stimulate readers well into their later years? I’d say all of the above.
   3. The same individual voiced skepticism, insisting current graphic novels and Manga were, in fact, NOT gateways for many.  [Mallozzi’s] response: [Mallozzi] would argue that former comic book readers are more likely to graduate to novels than kids who don’t.
   4. “Research shows reading graphic novels leads to improved reading and comprehension skills for all students. And studies demonstrate that children and teenagers who read graphic novels have improved, more positive attitudes towards reading.” https://theconversation.com/does-your-child-only-read-graphic-novels-thats-ok-its-helping-them-build-literacy-skills-280373
   5. This report demonstrates how comics allow young readers to build the reading skills that make them more likely to graduate to bigger books. [Mallozzi then provides a link, which I’m sharing]: https://unitedthroughreading.org/the-benefits-of-graphic-novels-why-they-count-as-reading/
   6. Teachers and librarians say that kids who discover comics are more likely to move on to other books. The presence of graphic novels in libraries resulted in a 30% increase in overall books being checked out. https://literacyworldwide.org/blog/literacy-now/2018/12/20/the-power-of-comics
   7. [Mallozzi then asks,] Are any of you comic book or graphic novel enthusiasts?  If so, what have been some of your favorite reads?
   8. MIKE: This piece got me thinking and reflecting about the subject of comic book reading, which is a reason I thought I would share this discussion with you.
   9. MIKE: I used to read tons of comics in the 1950s and 1960s. They varied from DC’s Superman-themed and other comics under various titles, to Archie, Marvel, and MAD Magazine, among others.
   10. MIKE: I was a precocious reader, beginning at about 4 years old. Because of comics, by the time I was 5 or 6, I knew words like “molecular” and “dimensions” and “ridiculous”. At this point in my life, I’ve probably read in the neighborhood of a thousand books or more, simply for pleasure.
   11. MIKE: Malozzi’s comment that, “Research shows reading graphic novels leads to improved reading and comprehension skills for all students. And studies demonstrate that children and teenagers who read graphic novels have improved, more positive attitudes towards reading,” really resonated with me.
   12. MIKE: This got me thinking about people I’ve known for a very long time who are very smart and well-educated, but who don’t like reading just for pleasure. And for the life of me, I don’t recall them being readers of comic books to any extent I can remember. Is a failure to simply enjoy reading a cause or an effect? Darned if I know, but it’s a potential graph plot point.
   13. MIKE: For a while, there were several people that I was tutoring, mostly in reading and writing. They ranged from middle school adolescents to college students, to a bank employee who wanted to improve her writing skills in order to achieve career advancement. A couple of these people spoke English as a second language.
   14. MIKE: I always encouraged any kind of reading that they enjoyed because, like Malozzi, I believe that any reading automatically results in improved reading skills, and that reading is a gateway skill to more reading, and more complex reading.
   15. MIKE: I even had the very same discussion as Malozzi recounts with a mother. She was concerned that her son liked to read comic books and she really wanted him to read stuff that was more ‘’educational’. I encouraged her to let him read what he wants, as long as he enjoys the reading, and for basically the same reasons that Malozzi puts forward.
   16. MIKE: Some of you might be wondering why I’m leading off the show with a discussion of the virtues of reading comic books or ‘graphic novels’.
   17. MIKE: Well, it’s because I have felt for a long time that America is now, and historically has been, a profoundly anti-intellectual country. This, in spite of the fact that Americans brag about our technological prowess, almost like it happens in spite of so-called ‘educated elites’.
   18. MIKE: I feel like we are now living through a period in our history where there is one political party whose educated elites ironically keep using ‘ivory tower elites’ and our ‘educated classes’ as whipping boys and girls, and that makes it even more important than ever to encourage any form of reading that people enjoy, because all reading is a potential gateway to further self-education.
3. On Thursday, the Houston Chronicle published an editorial criticizing some Houston development ordinances. Parking minimums are in the editorial title, but that’s not all they criticize. I have some thoughts on the editorial, which I’ll go into after I read it. From the Chronicle — Editorial | How can Houston keep growing and stay affordable? Cut parking minimums.; By The Houston Chronicle Editorial Board, Opinions | HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM | July 22, 2026. TAGS: City of Houston, Parking Minimums, Urban Core, Walkable Neighborhoods, Urbanism, The New Urbanism,
   1. [MIKE: The editorial starts off with what I almost consider a non sequitur…]
   2. Houston faces triple-digit heat this week, but even during summer there are moments when an afternoon storm cools things off and, maybe, if you stand under the shade of a 200-year-old oak and you’re dressed for the weather, a light breeze could make things feel practically tolerable. Perhaps even pleasant. It’s the sort of rare summer moment that has families heading outdoors, walking past storefronts as they make their way to the neighborhood ice cream spot for a refreshing treat. That’s the promise of urban living, and consumers are willing to pay a premium for it. Just one problem. It’s in a Katy shopping center. 
   3. [MIKE: It then goes on more substantively to say …]
   4. Earlier this year, developers announced a $400 million plan to build an artificial walkable neighborhood from scratch at the intersection of Interstate 10 and Texas Heritage Parkway.
   5. Meanwhile, Houston City Hall continues to enforce government red tape that holds our urban core to the same standards as an old-fashioned suburban strip mall — with strict setback requirements, burdensome parking minimums and dangerously wide roads. Many metro regions suffer from expensive housing and stifled growth because developers weren’t allowed to sprawl, but the City of Houston has the opposite problem: Developers aren’t allowed to densify. 
   6. That needs to change.
   7. For the sake of bolstering economic development, tax revenue, and population growth, Houston has to start cutting this red tape. First on the list: Eliminating parking minimums. 
   8. Right now, with limited exemptions, City Hall micromanages private development by telling each individual business exactly how many parking spots it needs to provide. This rigid, byzantine system adds unnecessary costs. After all, land and parking garages aren’t free. And requiring parking spots that aren’t needed essentially mandates pouring more concrete in a city already vulnerable to flooding. 
   9. Removing these mandates would give developers greater flexibility to build the mixed-use, in-fill projects that help our city continue to thrive. It would also give Houstonians more places to shop, work and, critically, live. At a time when too many Houstonians struggle to afford quality housing, City Hall should be taking every step possible to add more housing supply. 
   10. Parking reform could also help the city’s budget. Not only would it allow for more development — meaning more sales and property taxes — but it could also help Houston qualify for federal transit project funding under the new ROAD to Housing Act. 
   11. We’re not the only ones who think the city should eliminate parking mandates. Developers themselves are calling for it too. 
   12. In fact, Midway, a Houston-based real estate firm, is asking the city to eliminate parking mandates in a large part of Second Ward, extending exemptions that already exist for Midtown, downtown and EaDo. 
   13. [MIKE: For those who don’t keep up with Realtor lingo, EaDo is ‘sales-talk’ for “East Downtown”. Continuing …]
   14. [David Hightower, Midway executive vice president of investments and development, said at Bisnow’s Houston State of the Market event in April,] “That is the key to making these new mixed-use walkable environments. … It’s getting the parking right.”
   15. The Kinder Institute’s most recent Houston Area Survey found that about 60% of respondents want to live in [a] mixed-use development rather than a single-family home. To meet that demand, developers are building and buying new mixed-use developments all across our region. This year alone, MetroNational purchased M-K-T in the Heights, the RO has been growing at Buffalo Speedway and West Alabama, construction crews broke ground on The Lily River Oaks on Kirby Drive, and, yes, the East River project is on path to transform the Second Ward. Yet parking minimums and other regulations limit where and how these sorts of projects can exist in Houston.
   16. Developers know that mixed-use is a smart investment, and if they can’t buy it or build it within city limits, they’ll just head to the suburbs. Houston makes plenty of headlines about our booming economy and growing population, but all too often that growth is happening far beyond the formal municipality. Cutting unnecessary regulations would open the door to more prosperity within the city itself. 
   17. Other Texas cities, including Austin and Dallas, have already made major reforms to their parking mandates. And no, those cities’ neighborhoods didn’t turn into parking “Thunderdomes”. Given the freedom to right-size parking, Austin developers didn’t entirely stop building parking spaces — though they did build about 25% fewer of them. But that still amounts to a big savings, and the added flexibility can be critical for helping a new and affordable development pencil out. 
   18. Let’s get rid of the unnecessary government regulations that keep cash from flowing into our city, and build the infrastructure necessary to accommodate growth. Houston’s development is booming, and we need to make sure that boom is eagerly welcomed inside city limits. 
   19. MIKE: I think that “unnecessary regulations” are in the eye of both the beholder and the real estate developer, especially in a city without zoning, like Houston. Real estate developers make more money with fewer mandated parking spaces, so their motivation is obvious.
   20. MIKE: And I’m not even going to address the problem of overflow parking going into nearby neighborhoods. That’s an important but separate discussion.
   21. MIKE: Parking space mandates are among those regulations that some of us don’t consider “unnecessary”.
   22. MIKE: I was recently introduced to the term “urbanism” on Facebook by Laura Gallier [GAL- yer]. Wikipedia defines “Urbanism” in part as, “the scientific study of how inhabitants of urban areas, such as towns and cities, interact with the built environment. It is a direct component of disciplines such as urban planning … Many architects, planners, geographers, and sociologists investigate the way people live in densely populated urban areas.”
   23. MIKE: That discipline sounds both important and entirely reasonable. But then, there is the “new urbanism”. New Urbanism is not entirely the same thing as Urbanism. To me, it’s more like a philosophical and political offshoot sect.
   24. MIKE: Wikipedia describes “New Urbanism” — again, in part — as, “an urban design movement that promotes environmentally friendly habits by creating walkable neighborhoods containing a wide range of housing and job types. It arose in the United States in the early 1980s, and has gradually influenced many aspects of real estate development, urban planning, and municipal land-use New Urbanism attempts to address the ills associated with urban sprawl and post-WWII suburban development. … New Urbanism is strongly influenced by urban design practices that were prominent until the rise of the automobile prior to World War II; it encompasses basic principles such as traditional neighborhood development (TND) and transit-oriented development (TOD).^[5] These concrete principles emerge from two organizing concepts or goals: building a sense of community and the development of ecological practices.^[6]”
   25. MIKE: Again, as an urban design philosophy, that sounds entirely reasonable, and even laudable. But if you’re a person like me who is well past retirement age and who has back problems that make long walks synonymous with slow torture, the phrase “walkable neighborhood” instantly conjures up anticipation of pain.
   26. MIKE: The “rise of the automobile” for someone my age and in my physical condition is not a negative. Rather, it’s very much a liberating positive, and it sounds like young — or younger, or ‘young-ish’ — New Urbanists want to take that automotive liberation away from people like me, and from people with even more limitations than me. It actually sounds rather “age-ist”.
   27. MIKE: When I was a young man in New York City, I once walked — briskly, in dress shoes — from Central Park around 72^nd Street all the way to 14^th That’s a distance of over 3 miles. But that was over 50 years ago.
   28. MIKE: That was then. Now, my walking limitations are a mixture of good news/bad news. The good news is that I can navigate stairs fairly easily, but I have to be cognizant of knees and balance.
   29. MIKE: Also, once my joints and muscles are warmed up, I can actually walk as briskly as many young men for relatively short distances; maybe up to a mile on a good day. For someone watching me, that can be deceptive because, after that, I’m pretty much done for a few hours and can’t wait to get horizontal. Even big parking lots that require long walks just to get to the front door can be difficult.
   30. MIKE: So I have a limited disability that is not too constraining for normal functioning, but I don’t qualify for a handicapped placard that I can use judiciously for those days when I’m really not up for much walking.
   31. MIKE: Don’t get me wrong. For my age, I’m really lucky. I know of people who are years younger than me who can’t do what I can do, but still …
   32. MIKE: So when I hear phrases like “walkable city” and “reduced parking places”, it starts to scare me.
   33. MIKE: If I can’t walk far, even from distant parking places if they’re available, or if I can’t find parking at all when I arrive someplace, I’m really kind of screwed.
   34. MIKE: Growing up in Brooklyn, NY — a place that for the most part would qualify as an archetypal walkable city — I remember seeing elderly people shuffling home from the store in the heat, the cold, and the ice and snow, with their folding shopping carts full of groceries or other items.
   35. MIKE: Between trains and buses, New York City has one of the most comprehensive mass transit networks in the country, if not the world. But an elderly person navigating long staircases to-and-from train platforms or long walks to-and-from bus stops or train stations might find that challenging enough. Now, add shopping packages to that shlep.
   36. MIKE: So to sum up, designing a walkable city sounds great in theory, until you’re an older person having to walk it. And trust me, if you’re not old now, you eventually probably will be. What will you do then?
4. If you’ve been worrying about further American media consolidation with the prospect of the potential Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger, there’s this from VARIETY[.]COM — Judge Pauses Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger; By Gene Maddaus | VARIETY.COM | Jul 20, 2026 9:58am PT. TAGS: Paramount Skydance, Paramount-Warner Bros., Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger, Federal Antitrust Law, California Attorney General Rob Bonta,
   1. A federal judge ordered a temporary halt to the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger on Monday, as a state coalition argues it would violate federal antitrust law, leading to higher prices and fewer movies and TV shows.
   2. Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin granted a 14-day restraining order after hearing argument from both sides on Friday morning. Paramount had previously agreed not to close the transaction before July 22.
   3. [Adding that Paramount has acknowledged it will not be harmed by the delay until the end of September, the judge wrote,] “Plaintiff States’ showing at least demonstrates that serious questions going to the merits remain, weighing in favor of preliminary injunctive relief. … Paramount and Warner Bros. will continue to operate as separate, viable companies competing in the marketplace while they wait for the Court to adjudicate this case. The balance of equities, combined with the public’s vital interest in antitrust enforcement, therefore tips sharply in favor of the requested injunctive relief.”
   4. The 12-state coalition, led by California, brought a motion for the temporary restraining order. The states are also seeking a preliminary injunction, which would block the merger until the judge rules on the merits of the states’ lawsuit.
   5. The 14-day restraining order could be extended to as long as 28 days. Martinez-Olguin, of the U.S. District Court for Northern District of California in Oakland, also set a hearing on the preliminary injunction for Aug. 3, though that date, too, could be delayed if the parties agree.
   6. Rob Bonta, the attorney general of California, hailed the judge’s ruling as a “critical first win in our case to ensure this megamerger never sees the light of day.”
   7. [Bonta added,] “History tells the tale of what happens when a few people have great power over markets that are central to Americans’ lives: fewer opportunities for more people, worse products and services for all people … With our lawsuit, we’re fighting for a free and fair market and a thriving film and television industry that serves creatives and audiences alike. We have a full tank of gas, the law on our side, and look forward to continuing to make our case.”
   8. A Paramount spokesperson said that the company is “grateful for the Court’s swift order on the motion for a TRO.”
   9. [The spokesperson said,] “Like the timing agreement to which we were willing to stipulate, this TRO preserves the status quo while the Court considers the antitrust issues presented. … We are confident the evidence will demonstrate that the State AGs’ antitrust arguments are without merit, as their alleged markets and claims of anticompetitive effects are without any basis in modern market realities. This merger is lawful, pro-competitive, and will benefit consumers, creators, workers, and the entertainment industry. We will continue to vigorously defend the transaction and will look forward to the hearings on the substance of the State AGs’ action.” 
   10. In antitrust cases, the injunction is often the whole ballgame. If it is not granted, the deal is allowed to close and it becomes almost impossible to unwind later on. But if it is granted, the deal tends to fall apart before the underlying case can go to trial.
   11. Paramount has pushed for a hearing on the injunction with live witnesses. The company hopes to get a ruling on the injunction by early September. If the deal has not closed by Sept. 30, Paramount will start to owe millions of dollars a day to Warner Bros. investors.
   12. At the hearing on Friday, Martinez-Olguin telegraphed the outcome of the ruling, suggesting that Paramount had conceded it would not be harmed by a temporary pause. Jeffrey Kessler, arguing for Paramount, offered to stipulate that the transaction would not close for up to 30 days pending a hearing on the injunction motion.
   13. The states allege that the merger will harm competition in the basic cable and theatrical markets by combining two of the top three cable programmers and two of the top five film distributors. Paramount has pointed to the success of new entrants — A24, Amazon-MGM and others — to argue that the theatrical market is more competitive and dynamic than the state case makes it appear.
   14. Paramount also argues that the cable market is in decline, and that the court should thus not rely on the states’ estimates of market concentration.
   15. Paramount has also argued that the merger is pro-competitive because it will create a stronger rival in the streaming marketplace to dominant players like Netflix and Amazon. But in a footnote, the judge stated that she could not accept the idea that efficiencies in one market offset competitive harms in another.
   16. [Martinez-Olguin wrote,] “The Court notes separately that it cannot accept Defendants’ argument that the Transaction will produce efficiencies in the streaming market. … Courts have expressly and repeatedly rejected the defense that a challenged merger will result in economic efficiencies ancillary to competition in the relevant market.”
   17. Martinez-Olguin’s ruling is available at this link.
   18. MIKE: The link to that ruling is in this show post at ThinkwingRadio[.]com.
   19. MIKE: I hope that this TRO results in the merger falling apart. It’s not only a question of a monopolistic or oligopolistic concentration of media conglomerates, though that’s certainly a major question.
   20. MIKE: It also reflects the concern for how multibillion dollar media corporations reflect, influence, and inspire our culture — for good or ill — in social norms, politics, news coverage, and widely disseminated editorial pronouncements.
   21. MIKE: The Paramount-CBS-Skydance merger is an example of how a megalopoly can degrade the quality and objectivity of the public information and opinion-making marketplace.
   22. MIKE: We’ve seen the results of what gigantic television, radio and media conglomerates like the Sinclair Broadcast Group, Nexstar Media Group, Fox Corporation, Comcast, NBCUniversal, The Walt Disney Company, etc. have done to national politics, the national conversation, the diversity of debate and ideas, and our general sense of national unity.
   23. MIKE: I suppose upon reflection that it’s ironic that having thousands of independent stations and newspapers voicing diverse and varied opinions seem to be an aid to national unity, but I think that it’s the current existence of just a few unified voices telling 300 million people what to think that is a large part of our current sociopolitical problems.
   24. MIKE: There was a time, before the 1990s, when companies were severely limited in the number of radio stations, TV stations, and newspapers they could own.
   25. GOOGLE AI: “Those pre-1990s limitations stem from the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) strict “7-7-7” rule (and its subsequent “12-12-12” rule)”.
   26. GOOGLE AI: “The Telecommunications Act of 1996 abolished the national limits for [TV, newspaper, and] radio ownership entirely and dramatically raised the cap on local market ownership, triggering a massive wave of corporate consolidation.”
   27. MIKE: I’ve linked to a Wikipedia article I used as a reference if you want to learn more about that 1996 act.
   28. MIKE: I would challenge anyone to argue in hindsight that this change was good for the nation in the long term.
   29. MIKE: If and when the Democrats come to power, it would be nice to see some of these mergers unwound, and for the DOJ and FCC to break up most of these huge media oligopolies.
   30. MIKE: At the very least, I’d like to see major media conglomerates limited in their editorial control over their owned local stations and media holdings, though I’m not sure of the First Amendment implications of such an idea.
   31. MIKE: These conglomerates could then potentially benefit from their alleged ‘efficiencies of scale’ while ending their lockstep control over the editorial opinions, policies, and community endeavors disseminated to those markets. The Sinclair Group has been especially notorious for this.
   32. MIKE: Another change I’d like to see with potential First Amendment questions is a federal definition of what constitutes “news” versus what constitutes “opinion” and what constitutes “entertainment”.
   33. MIKE: FOX defends its alleged “news” as actually being opinion and entertainment, even though they have nonetheless branded it as FOXNews.
   34. MIKE: If the FDA can define what food products can call themselves and how they define themselves, I don’t see why the FCC can’t define what broadcasters and programs can call themselves.
   35. GOOGLE AI: “The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and ABC (Disney) are currently locked in a major free speech dispute regarding the daytime talk show The View and its coverage of political candidates.”
   36. MIKE: Ironically, Trump’s apparatchik-run FCC may be opening the door to this very regulatory question by forcing Disney-owned ABC to define what class of discussion and talk are on The View. Is it in fact “news” (which has certain political speech obligations), or is it protected opinion, or is it entertainment?
   37. MIKE: If the FCC can legally challenge a TV program to define itself in such a narrow way, does it also set the precedent for the FCC to define more broadly what is protected speech and what isn’t? Can it force programs to define themselves into regulated communications categories?
   38. MIKE: I’d be interested in the opinions of this show’s followers. You can leave comments at the bottom of this show post at ThinkwingRadio[.]com.
5. Regular listeners to this show may have heard me occasionally say that I may be more worried about artificial stupidity than artificial intelligence. Well, this may be a glaring example of the former. From REUTERS[.]COM — OpenAI’s breach of Hugging Face stokes fears about what’s next for AI; by Miranda Nazzaro – 07/24/26 6:00 AM ET. TAGS: Artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, GPT-5.6 Sol, Hugging Face, OpenAI, AI agents, Rogue AI agents,
   1. Washington and the technology industry are on high alert this week after OpenAI revealed that some of its AI agents went rogue and hacked into the systems of technology startup Hugging Face. 
   2. The incident bore out years of warnings from the tech and cybersecurity community about the growing capabilities and hypothetical risks artificial intelligence could pose to critical infrastructure. 
   3. Amid the warnings, Washington has tried to play catch-up to manage the cybersecurity risks, but concerns were stoked this week by the incident and fluctuating policy.
   4. [Said Adam Ely, general manager of AI security at the cybersecurity firm Check Point Software,] “What makes this wildly different” for security teams at companies is that it “brings the theoretical scenario of AI being capable of breaching a company and moving faster than a company can detect and respond to attack from theory to reality.”
   5. OpenAI revealed Tuesday that two of its models, including its latest GPT-5.6 Sol and an unreleased model, were being evaluated in an internal testing sandbox, but they breached past the environment and broke into Hugging Face’s database without any prompt to do so. 
   6. The incident caught the attention of even well-versed cybersecurity experts, as it involved autonomous agents and two separate companies. 
   7. [Check Point Software’s Ely said,] “Whether it’s sort of an autonomous situation that wasn’t intended to be malicious, or whether it’s attackers controlling a model to do that, that’s different than what most people have experienced.”
   8. [In a blog post,] OpenAI called the incident an “unprecedented cyber incident, involving state-of-the-art cyber capabilities.”
   9. The ChatGPT maker said the models were being tested for hacking capabilities in an isolated testing environment with constrained network access and had their normal safety checks off as a result. While trying to find a solution for a test, the models exploited a previously unknown vulnerability in a third-party software to gain access to the internet. 
   10. [MIKE: In other stories, there have been questions about why the computer being used for these tests were not “air-gapped”. In other words, why was the test computer connected to a network at all? Continuing …]
   11. The [AI] models inferred [that] Hugging Face, which hosts hundreds of thousands of open-source models, datasets and cloud environments, had a solution for the test and proceeded to breach Hugging Face’s servers. 
   12. The Hugging Face team used some of its own open-source models to stop the activity and assess damage. 
   13. The two companies — OpenAI and Hugging Face — are working together to further investigate. OpenAI said it is improving and adding stronger protections for future evaluations, and working with the third-party software to patch the vulnerability that caused the models to breach the sandbox.
   14. Hugging Face said in another blog post [that] the situation matched the “agentic attacker” scenario the industry has long predicted. 
   15. [Hugging Face wrote,] “Autonomous, AI-driven offensive tooling is no longer theoretical. It lowers the cost of running a broad, patient, multi-stage campaign, and it operates at machine speed.”
   16. Hugging Face CEO Thomas Wolf predicted in a Thursday interview with BBC that the incident will become “one of the most common types of cyberattacks we see,” but he noted most firms do not know the “game has changed.”
   17. Connor Leahy, an AI researcher and safety advocate who serves as the U.S. director of ControlAI, compared the attack to “[the] way the best hackers in the world operate.” 
   18. [Leahy added,] “This is how really advanced hacks in the real world tend to look … where you have multiple humps that go through many different levels and chain multiple types of hacks, and this system was able to do this basically completely unsupervised.”
   19. ControlAI is a nonprofit focused on the potential existential risks of AI. 
   20. While researchers have warned of the hacking risks of AI for years, Washington and the Trump administration just recently began to openly discuss concerns around it. 
   21. [In a shift from the White House’s typical hands-off approach to AI development,] President Trump signed an executive order in early June aimed at ensuring models are secure before public release. 
   22. The order laid out a process for a voluntary testing framework, in which artificial intelligence companies can share their models with the government for up to 30 days before releasing them publicly. 
   23. It gave agencies 60 days, or until Aug. 1, to create a classified benchmarking process for “covered frontier” AI models and a voluntary framework for companies to abide by. 
   24. [MIKE: Since I was unfamiliar with exactly what a “frontier AI model” was, I looked it up. Cowdstrike[.]com says that, “Frontier AI typically refers to the most advanced, general-purpose artificial intelligence models available at any given time. These are large-scale systems that sit at the “frontier” of current capabilities in areas such as reasoning, multimodal understanding, and autonomous task execution.” There’s a lot more to that story if you want to click on the link I’m providing in this show post at ThinkwingRadio[.] com. Continuing …]
   25. [In the meantime,] The White House’s stance on AI development has fluctuated, leaving companies in limbo. Anthropic and OpenAI last month delayed their latest model rollouts to the public, including Sol 5.6, at the request of the government. 
   26. Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, was briefed on the incident and is monitoring the situation, Reuters reported
   27. Congress signaled alarm about the incident as well, with Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Nathaniel Moran (R-Texas) introducing a bill Thursday to give the Department of Homeland Security authority to order a slowdown or shutdown of an AI system that can cause “catastrophic harm.” 
   28. The bill, called the AI Kill Switch Act, would apply to companies with a gross revenue of more than $500 million a year. Lieu cited the recent OpenAI incident, along with the emergence of powerful models like Anthropic’s Mythos 5. 
   29. [Lieu said in a statement,] “Unfortunately, powerful AI systems can go rogue, behave in extremely dangerous ways, or even resist human intervention.”
   30. [MIKE: I think that, in a nutshell, describes precisely what I mean by artificial stupidity. A rogue AI is not necessarily malicious in the human sense of having insidious intent. Rather, for reasons that are potentially opaque to humans, it might commit acts that look malicious, but without a human having actually ordered it to do so. Continuing …]
   31. The bill is likely to face heavy pushback from figures in the AI industry who argue a slowdown in development could hinder U.S. competition and global standing on technology. If passed, the bill would give the federal government an unprecedented amount of oversight into the release of AI models.
   32. Meanwhile, the AI safety community welcomed the legislation. 
   33. Leahy, a longtime AI safety advocate, lauded the bill, telling The Hill, “The minimum law enforcement and the government should be able to do is intervene. [Leahy added,] It’s also very good I think, for the companies, in the sense that it forces them to actually know where their AIs are,” suggesting [that] companies “don’t know how to control them.” 
   34. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) and Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) introduced a separate bill Thursday, called the FRONTIER Act, to establish tiered requirements based on the size of a frontier AI’s development. 
   35. Requirements would include risk-management frameworks, audits and incident reporting.
   36. [Obernolte said,] “This legislation will protect Americans from catastrophic risk, provide developers with clear rules of the road, and ensure the United States remains the global leader in AI.”
   37. Still, cybersecurity experts are seeing the incident as a good learning lesson. 
   38. Brendan Griffin, director of threat research for cybersecurity defender firm N-able, pointed out [that] the situation showed the challenges of a company’s response. 
   39. As Hugging Face began deploying AI to stop the attack, it said it faced some limitations from the models it tried to use for defense. 
   40. [ Hugging Face‘s Griffin said,] “It tells a broader story about what it means to be a security defender in this era. … So it would stand to [reason] that as a network defender, as somebody who’s engaged in the cybersecurity space, I’m probably going to want to have some means or mechanism to test those tools.” 
   41. [Griffin added,] “There’s nothing special about this piece. They tried to do something and they may have run into a limitation. Well, let’s assess that limitation before it becomes relevant.”
6. In the last story, because everything these days has geopolitical implications, a concern common among AI companies was expressed that efforts at government regulation of AI would cause “a slowdown in development [that] could hinder U.S. competition and global standing on technology.” In this week’s show post at ThinkwingRadio[.]com, I’ve linked to the specific bill to which that statement was applied in the previous story. This next story goes into a bit more detail regarding those concerns about international competition in AI, specifically from China. From REUTERS[.].COM — Chinese AI’s role in stopping rogue OpenAI agent shows cost of US guardrails; By Aditya Soni and Jaspreet Singh | REUTERS.COM | July 22, 2026@12:17 PM CDT/Updated July 23, 2026. TAGS: Chinese AI, OpenAI Technology, Zhipu AI’s Open-Source GLM-5.2, AI-Driven Cyberattacks, OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol,
   1. A New York startup’s use of a Chinese AI model to rein in a rogue agent built with OpenAI technology is stoking fears that guardrails restricting U.S. AI firms from doing cybersecurity work could drive customers ​toward their Beijing-based rivals.
   2. The affected startup, Hugging Face, said it had turned to Zhipu AI’s open-source GLM-5.2 model last week ‌to analyze data from the hack after leading U.S. AI models declined the task, unable to distinguish between a defender and an attacker.
   3. While the breach was caused by an autonomous agent that escaped containment, it highlighted how U.S. companies facing AI-driven cyberattacks can be limited by American AI labs that either restrict access to their most advanced ​models, or design them to refuse hacking-related tasks out of safety concerns.
   4. For instance, Anthropic’s advanced Claude Fable 5 model routes cybersecurity queries ​to an older model, while OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol has protections designed to block cyber work.
   5. [Hugging ​Face co-founder Clement Delangue said on X,] “We’re all learning that secrecy ⁠is not the answer & that all defenders (not just a few selected ones) everywhere need more powerful models without restrictions, especially open ones!”
   6. [MIKE: I thought that was an interesting position to take, since I think it could also lead to more powerful AI agents escaping containment. Or worse, with guardrails removed, a human could more easily use these unbridled AI’s specifically for malicious intent. Think of “Pinky and the Brain”, which is itself probably loosely inspired by the main characters in “Of Mice and Men”. In the kind of instance I envision, a human acting as The Brain, could command the unrestrained AI (acting as Pinky) to stage targeted attacks for reasons ranging from profit to espionage to actual cyberattack in a warfare context. That’s sort of where the next part of this article goes. Continuing with the story …]
   7. The bind for leading American model makers is that defensive cybersecurity work is often hard to distinguish from malicious ​hacking. In recent AI-enabled breaches, attackers tricked models into thinking they were doing legitimate defense work, leaving AI firms wary of easing safeguards even as cyber professionals say the guardrails can hamper their work.
   8. For now, the fallout is handing another boost to Chinese open-source models such as GLM-5.2, which are gaining traction in Silicon Valley with coding ​and agentic capabilities that nearly rival those of OpenAI and Anthropic at lower cost.
   9. Beijing has also been increasingly using open-source to position itself as ​an alternative to the U.S. in the high-stakes race, with Chinese state media increasingly portraying the strategy as a response to what it calls a U.S.-led attempt ‌to erect ⁠an “AI Iron Curtain.”
   10. [Said Lukasz Olejnik, independent technology consultant and visiting senior research fellow at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London,] “A safety regime that restricts legitimate defenders, while capable models remain available for attackers, creates an asymmetric disadvantage. … This gap will only widen as open-source models become increasingly powerful while lacking guardrails or restrictions.”
   11. … When asked whether the safeguards were hindering cybersecurity work, OpenAI pointed to a blog post, while Anthropic did not ​immediately respond to a request for comment. …
   12. Still, some analysts warned on Wednesday that the incident should not be used ⁠to promote ​loosening of U.S. safeguards.
   13. [Said Shrenik Kothari, an analyst at Robert W. Baird,] “The cybersecurity guardrails on U.S. frontier models are creating a competitive opening, ​but the answer is not simply to remove them. … OpenAI, Anthropic and Google should rethink the architecture of access rather than abandon safety … ​In other words, shift from a one-size-fits-all refusal layer toward controlled capability allocation.”
   14. MIKE: I think that these two stories, looked at in tandem, start to sound a lot like “damned if you do and damned if you don’t”.
   15. MIKE: Legislation, using precise language to outline law, is very bad at micromanaging an evolving threat. Maybe we need to see cybersecurity and cyberthreats the way Ukraine and Russia have been seeing drone technology: As a moving target that requires constant evolution in order to effectively respond.
   16. MIKE: The US has cyber and anti-cyber elements scattered across many departments, including Homeland Security, Defense, and the NSA. Maybe it’s time to look at what we have and where it is, and consolidate those elements into a cabinet-level Department of Cyberdefense.
   17. MIKE: Potential adversaries of the US and the West in general have long been using cyber tools for espionage and sabotage. Further, cybercriminal non-state actors who may or not be working for, or collaborating with, potentially hostile powers have also become a threat to businesses, public utilities, municipal governments, and more.
   18. MIKE: Thus, it may be past time to create a cabinet-level department that can see these threats and respond to them in a more highly coordinated fashion.
7. Speaking of cabinet-level departments and malicious intent, from THEHILL[.]COM on July 13 — Rubio vows diplomatic campaign to ‘dismantle’ ICC in escalating row; by Laura Kelly | THEHILL.COM | 07/13/26 11:48 AM ET. TAGS: Bush, Joe Biden, Marco Rubio, Obama, Vladimir Putin, International Criminal Court (ICC),
   1. [On Monday, July 13,] Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a new broadside in the U.S. fight with the International Criminal Court (ICC), announcing a diplomatic effort by the Trump administration to dismantle the global tribunal. 
   2. Rubio issued the action call in an opinion article in The Wall Street Journal and a video message shared on social media.
   3. His announcement comes after three of the court’s judges filed a lawsuit in New York last month against the Trump administration. The lawsuit argues sanctions levied against them are unlawful. 
   4. [Rubio wrote in his op-ed,] “The U.S. is launching a diplomatic campaign with a simple message — sovereign states over globalism. … Using all the tools at our government’s disposal, working beside every ally with whom we can make common cause, we will dismantle the ICC — brick by brick, if necessary.”
   5. [MIKE: I have a feeling that the countries with whom the US could make common cause for dismantling the ICC would not typically be our allies, but rather would actually often be our real or potential adversaries. Such is the irony of the US itself turning into a rogue nation in so many respects. Continuing …]
   6. A State Department official told Reuters [that] the diplomatic tools include travel bans, visa revocations, increased sanctions against the ICC and affiliated organizations, and diplomatic pressure on other nations to withdraw from the ICC. 
   7. The ICC was established in 2002 to prosecute genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. There are 125 countries that have signed and ratified the Rome Statute, the agreement that established the court. 
   8. Rubio in his video message accused the ICC of being “a global tribunal staffed by unelected globalist bureaucrats who claim their power is almost unlimited.”
   9. In his op-ed, he accused the body of being “backed and run by a powerful network of leftist nongovernment organizations, smug globalists, and hostile Third World governments united by their enmity toward the U.S.”
   10. The U.S. has a complicated relationship with the ICC, having never signed onto the Rome Statute, and with Democratic presidential administrations engaging more with the court compared with Republican administrations.  
   11. [MIKe: Hmmmmmm …]
   12. Former President Obama’s administration endorsed the court’s work investigating postelection violence in Kenya, and former President Biden’s administration shared intelligence with the ICC as it developed its indictment against Russian President Vladimir Putin and a top Russian official for crimes related to the kidnapping of Ukrainian children. 
   13. The Biden administration’s cooperation in 2021 reportedly led to the ICC deprioritizing investigations into U.S. service members as part of its focus on alleged crimes committed by the Afghan government and Taliban forces. 
   14. The administrations for former President George W. Bush and President Trump have pushed back against the court seeking to investigate the conduct of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and Israel’s actions against Palestinians. A 2002 law, the American Service-Members’ Protection Act, passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, gives the president authority to defend U.S. personnel being detained or imprisoned on behalf of the ICC. 
   15. MIKE: The US has its reasons for not joining the ICC. As Google Ai sums up a Wikipedia article, “The United States has not joined the International Criminal Court (ICC) primarily to protect its sovereignty, avoid politically motivated prosecutions of its military and leaders, and reject foreign jurisdiction over American citizens.”
   16. MIKE: The list of countries that have signed the 2002 Treaty of Rome that created the ICC but have not officially ratified it include the United States, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Russia, Sudan, and Syria. That puts us in seriously mixed company.
   17. MIKE: The list of countries that have not joined the ICC at all are revealing. They include China, India, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye.
   18. MIKE: There’s an old trope that if you haven’t committed any crimes, what are you afraid of?
   19. MIKE: I certainly understand that in the real world in which we live, the possibility of geopolitically-motivated vindictive prosecution is a real thing. Heck, vindictive prosecution is currently a real thing in the MAGA United States.
   20. MIKE: But as a signatory to the ICC treaty, I think that there have certainly been instances where the US might have considered turning over potential war criminals to the ICC, particularly if the US legal system has already established just cause for indictment under US law.
   21. MIKE: There may even come a time in the not-so-distant future when the US will have some former government officials who might be candidates for trial at the ICC.
   22. MIKE: I guess we’ll … “C”.