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Monthly Archives: July 2023
Review: Choose Your Own Adventure in ‘American Futures’ Book – Reason
Posted: July 13, 2023 at 4:52 am
What if you could choose your own adventure for the future of the United States? That's the premise of American Futures, written by Tom Jenney, an Arizona native of libertarian bent who spent years as a fixture on the state's think tank and lobbying scene.
Within the book's conceptual framework, aliens are among us and can control our minds, to the degree they can force majorities to agree with and act on any given ideology. As a sort of social sciencefiction experiment, the reader can impose any of 14 different political philosophies onto the nation. The book then becomes a series of choose-your-own-ideology adventures narrating how things would likely turn out in each timeline.
The book is massivethree volumes in its printed doorstop edition. But it's an easy read, since Jenney uses hyperlinking in the navigable (and far cheaper) Kindle edition to let readers take short trips into the future through multiple scenarios for each ideology. Some scenarios evolve naturally, while others test systems' responses to war, natural disaster, and even the Rapture.
Jenney's libertarian leanings and his background in economics and politics come through, to the degree that certain pointssuch as warnings about high debt and inflationinevitably start to seem repetitive. The main characters vary from story to story, and Jenney manages to make most of them sympathetic no matter their ideology, though that dedication necessarily frays for some very unsavorily authoritarian options.
It's a quirky book, but it's oddly addictive. While not a traditional policy tome, it's a serious attempt to consider the impact of the choices we make in the voting booth.
The rest is here:
Review: Choose Your Own Adventure in 'American Futures' Book - Reason
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Fundraisers revel in gutted N.J. pay-to-play law – POLITICO
Posted: at 4:52 am
Good Wednesday morning!
No Pay To Play Law!
Those five words were included in the subject line for an email invite to A July 31 fundraiser for Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh.
Paterson a city not exactly untouched by corruption enacted a strict local pay-to-play law in 2011. It was a condition of receiving millions of dollars in transitional aid from the state.
But the Elections Transparency Act eliminated local pay-to-play laws, holding them only to the state pay-to-play law with a loophole so big you can fit numerous contractors dump trucks through it. And so now Paterson effectively has no law restricting contractors from giving to campaigns something clearly noted on Sayeghs fundraiser invitation.
I dont know if the near-elimination of pay-to-play restrictions in New Jersey will make a huge difference. Many of those contractors already gave indirectly to help elect candidates that were later responsible for giving them contracts, often through PACs and non-profits. Some advocates had long called for a single, statewide comprehensive pay-to-play law instead of the patchwork of local ordinances. But they also called for eliminating the notorious fair and open loophole that all but exempted local governments . Now, theres just one statewide pay-to-play law, but the loophole remains.
Sayegh told me that he had no problem with Patersons old pay-to-play ordinance. In fact, he authored it as a councilmember. But, he said, Now that its no longer effective, people do need to know.
TIPS? FEEDBACK? Email me at [emailprotected]
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Im not surprised at all by the data, nor is any Black person in the state of New Jersey surprised by the data. Rev. Charles Boyer on a Northeastern University that found State Police stop Black and Hispanic drivers at far higher rates than their share of the population
HAPPY BIRTHDAY Erica Jedynak Richard Simmons
WHERES MURPHY? In Atlantic City for the NGA meeting, then attending the wake of Newark firefighter Augusto Augir Acabou
CRITICS SLAM NJ TRANSIT FOR ONYX DEAL, URGE AGENCY TO BACDAFUCUP NJ Transit signs controversial lease with Onyx for pricey new HQ, by The Records Colleen Wilson: NJ Transit has signed a controversial lease with Onyx Equities, LLC, to move its headquarters to the 2 Gateway building in Newark, NorthJersey.com has learned. The lease for 407,000 square feet more than previous estimates was confirmed by a Q2 real estate report published by commercial real estate firm CBRE, but other information has been minimal. Controversy over the deal has been building since February as reporting from NorthJersey.com has revealed that the Onyx building was the most expensive option on the table, and emails reveal discussion about a possible move to Gateway a year before the agency started to solicit bids. The agency chose the more expensive option even though it faces large fiscal deficits in the next two years. A board member resigned over the lack of transparency with the decision to move.
NJSP N.J. State Police pull over minorities at unacceptable rate, study finds, by NJ Advance Medias S.P. Sullivan: A team of independent researchers will monitor the traffic stops of New Jersey state troopers after a study of more than 6 million cases found concerning racial and ethnic disparities in who gets stopped by police on Garden State roadways, state authorities said Tuesday The division of State Police has a long and troubled history of racial profiling complaints and spent more than a decade under federal monitoring, which ended in 2009. But a preliminary study of a massive trove of enforcement data found disparities have only grown. In 2009, 35% of the motorists troopers stopped by state troopers were Black or Hispanic. That figure has since risen to 46%, far more than their share of the population, the data shows.
CHRISTIE ADMINISTRATION: NUMBNUTS. MURPHY ADMINISTRATION: NUTS NUMBERS Not a perfect process': How did two versions of NJs budget differ? by The Records Katie Sobko: In each chamber of the Legislature, late-night committee meetings saw budget bills introduced and read into the record with a fiscal plan that would spend $54,324,277,000. But by the time Gov. Phil Murphy signed the legislation and made it the law of the land less than 48 hours later, that number had grown to $54,357,547,000. A NorthJersey.com review found more than 100 differences between the budget bill approved by committee on June 28 and the version voted on by the full Assembly and state Senate on June 30. According to Marc Pfeiffer, assistant director of the Bloustein Local Government Research Center at Rutgers University, these short-cuts in the legislative process are not new. Pfeiffer said the discrepancies between the two versions of the state budget bill could certainly be seen as disconcerting to New Jersey voters. They are not illegal, but when the average citizen reads about them, they appear to be another abuse of the publics trust of government.
CATCHING HEAT BPU wants to begin decarbonizing buildings, despite criticisms, by NJ Spotlight News Tom Johnson: The Murphy administration is preparing to adopt a program to electrify the building sector, a move that aims to cut fossil fuel emissions from the second-biggest source of global warming pollution. In one of the states most controversial clean-energy strategies, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities is scheduled at its bimonthly meeting Wednesday to adopt the initial steps of its building decarbonization policy. The program primarily involves switching space and water heating from fossil fuels to electric heat pumps.
Workers compensation program still at risk of fraud and abuse, comptroller says
News organizations across NJ examine segregation in the states schools
New Jersey attorney general releases report on impact of white supremacy in state
Bill to halt residency requirement for N.J. teachers in limbo for the summer
DICK GEPHARDT SUPPORT DEFINITELY A GAME CHANGER Moderate Partys fusion voting lawsuit gets more high-profile backers, by New Jersey Globes Joey Fox: A legal effort by the fledgling New Jersey Moderate Party to bring fusion voting to New Jersey has gained a number of new prominent backers, with a several notable politicians and advocacy groups filing amicus briefs today as the case makes its way through the New Jersey Superior Court. Included among the newly professed supporters of fusion voting, which allows general election candidates to run on multiple party lines, are the ACLU of New Jersey, the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice, the libertarian-minded Cato Institute, the New Jersey Libertarian Party, and a bipartisan group of five former members of Congress, one of them being former House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-Missouri).
HOMECOMING Jill Biden coming to N.J. this week as National Governors Association led by Murphy will meet, by NJ Advance Medias Derek Hall: The National Governors Association, chaired by Gov. Phil Murphy, is set to begin its annual summer meeting Wednesday in Atlantic City, bringing the yearly conference back to New Jersey for the first time in more than three decades. Governors from 50 states and five territories will join business leaders and federal officials, including First Lady Jill Biden, for two days of public discussions on some of todays most pressing issues for state leaders.
New Jersey lawmakers take aim at flood insurance rate hikes. Heres why
Snowflack: Back from the Trump cult: Christie soaks up media attention
PORT FIRE The fire is out, officials say. Next, an investigation into Port Newarks deadliest incident in decades, by NJ Advance Medias Jackie Roman: The deadly shipboard fire in Port Newark has finally been extinguished after six days and round-the-clock firefighting, officials with the U.S. Coast Guard and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced Tuesday The U.S Coast Guard is now conducting a multi-agency investigation into the blaze, which killed veteran Newark firefighters Augusto Augie Acabou, 45, and Wayne Bear Brooks Jr., 49, and injured five others from the department. The New York and Elizabeth fire departments, the Coast Guard and other agencies also responded.
Newark firefighters union blasts neglect by city in wake of two deaths, by The Records Liam Quinn: Firefighters union officials were blunt at a Tuesday press conference. We want to shine a light on the neglect that the [Newark Fire Department] has endured under [the citys] administration, Newark Firefighters Union President Michael Giunta said Giunta was was joined by Anthony Tarantino, president of the Newark Fire Officers Union, and Edward Kelly, general president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, among other members of the citys firefighter union. The trio said the neglect is a combination of understaffing, regular apparatus failures and inadequate training, and they laid it at the feet of the citys administration. Mayor Ras Baraka refused many of the claims made at the Tuesday press conference. Statements issued to the media at a time when our fallen heroes have yet to be honored by funeral services, are unconscionable, divisive, and only add insult to the injury that the families and our city is already experiencing, Baraka said in a statement.
Moran:Did these firefighters have to die?
RSUIT Wind power company sues Cape May County over permitting delay, by The Press of Atlantic Citys Eric Conklin: The company building a controversial wind farm off New Jerseys coast is suing Cape May County officials for not fulfilling permitting requests and following regulator orders it argues has delayed the project. Ocean Wind 1, owned by Danish-based energy company rsted, contends the county, its clerk and its engineer are prolonging the paperwork needed for easements required by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities. The officials also are not yet granting road opening permits for work in Ocean City, the suit alleges.
MELITOPOBOKEN, BIRTHPLACE OF FRANK SINATROV City of Hoboken and Melitopol, Ukraine formalize agreement as sister cities, by Hudson County Views John Heinis: The City of Hoboken and Melitopol, Ukraine have formalized an agreement, facilitated by the United States Agency of International Development (USAID), as sister cities. As Russia continues to wage war on the citizens of Ukraine, it is all the more of a reason to stand with our global neighbors, Mayor Ravi Bhalla said in a statement.
VAPE MAY COUNTY INCLUDES STONED HERBOR AND HIGHER TOWNSHIP Legal weed is on its way to Cape May County, by The Press of Atlantic Citys Bill Barlow: Work continues on a Sunset Boulevard property thats set to become Cape May Countys first legal cannabis dispensary. The New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission approved a class 5 retail license for Tomas Nuscis for Shore House Canna LLC in March. The business had originally planned to open its doors by April 20, often described as a weed holiday, and later advertised a June 30 opening. Now, the store hopes to begin serving customers by Labor Day.
HIS POLITICAL MOVES ARE MACHIAVELLIAN McGreevey forms civic association to serve communities in Jersey City, Hudson County, by New Jersey Globes David Wildstein: Taking a page out of Brian Stacks playbook, former Gov. James E. McGreevey has formed the McGreevey Civic Association to provide services to Jersey City and Hudson County residents. The move allows McGreevey to expand his humanitarian footprint in Jersey City while boosting his electoral chances if he runs for Mayor in 2025. The Foundation seeks to build a sense of community, shared responsibility, and healthy values through service to those in need, McGreevey said.
CLARK BARRED Clark whistleblower sues township as racism scandal reaches third year without resolution, by NJ Advance Medias Riley Yates: A whistleblower who documented racism at Clarks town hall is suing the Union County township, charging officials have retaliated against him, disrupting his life and preventing him from securing new jobs. Former Lt. Antonio Manatas lawsuit represents the latest salvo between him and the township, which in 2020 agreed to pay him a settlement of more than $400,000 to conceal secret recordings he made of Mayor Sal Bonaccorso and police brass using racial slurs that included the n-word. The suit, filed June 30 in state Superior Court, alleges the township has since put up roadblocks that cost Manata prospective work as a former law enforcement officer and violated his settlement agreement.
Newark probing whether zoning board member violated residency rule
Galloway police assumed this woman was doing drugs. Instead, she was having an epileptic seizure
Police contacting youth sports groups after charging well-known coach [and Cumberland County Utilities Authority member] with assaulting teen
Controversial Hillsborough warehouse proposal drags on as Manville mayor joins critics
Marie Hayes named Cape May County surrogate
Unarmed man shot in back, paralyzed by Paterson cop sues for $50M
The Paterson Police Department will see a massive infusion from NJs new budget: How much?
Drama between [North Wildwood] and N.J. over fixing the shrinking beach intensifies
Ink-free Hoboken proposes lifting prohibition on new tattoo parlors for first time since 1998
IS ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS-BASED CNBC ANGLING FOR A TAX BREAK? New Jersey is 2023s most-improved state for business, led by a strong economy and housing market, by CNBCs Scott Cohn: First, the good news. The state has received two consecutive credit rating upgrades from Moodys. In its latest upgrade, in April, the agency cited the states solid economic recovery, with job gains leading the region and driving employment above the states pre-pandemic peak. Now, the bad news. New Jersey still has the nations second-worst debt rating, according to Moodys, just above Illinois. CNBCs 2023 Americas Top States for Business rankings tell a similar story. New Jersey is this years Most Improved State, climbing 23 places to No. 19, and vaulting convincingly into the top half from a 42nd place finish last year. The bad news is that The Garden State is still one of the most expensive states in which to do business (No. 44), and among the least business-friendly (No. 48), according to the CNBC rankings.
THEIR FIRING WAS 32BS American Dream workers, fired after trying to organize union, getting jobs back this week, by The Records Daniel Munoz: Two cleaning staff at the American Dream Mall who said they were fired for trying to form a union are being given their jobs back this week, according to an attorney for the union. Their reinstatement comes after a decision last week by Kevin McNulty, a federal judge, who handed down his order siding with the two workers and the union, 32BJ, which represents service workers in the state. Both have been offered reinstatement at the employee, HSA Cleaning, and have accepted the offers, according to 32BJ attorney Brent Garren.
Bergen man who murdered his family in 1976 is released from prison on parole
NJ real estate influencers, radio DJ accused of defrauding almost $2 million from 2 men
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this newsletter partially misidentified Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh.
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Twitter users slam Kamala Harris for airplane bathroom demand amid the ongoing border crisis: ‘Really?’ – Yahoo News
Posted: at 4:52 am
Twitter users roasted Vice President Kamala Harris for putting an emphasis on the "inequity" of airplane restrooms, questioning why that issue is a priority for the vice president while the southern border remains in dire condition and prices continue to soar.
"The majority of domestic flights do not have accessible restrooms. This is absolutely unacceptable," the Democrat wrote Tuesday on Twitter. "Our Administration will soon announce a solution to help end this inequity."
The comment section was filled with laughs and confusion over Harris' suggestion, with numerous users sounding the alarm that the potential remodeling of most American aircraft would spike domestic flight prices nationwide.
"So when seating capacity is diminished, do you plan to deploy the government to solve the pricing problem the government created," the Arizona Libertarian Party responded.
KAMALA HARRIS RIDICULED FOR NONESENSE COMMENTS AT TRANSPORTATION ROUNDTABLE: SHE CANT BE SERIOUS'
"Yeah get on that VP!! Forget the Border, and all the other" actor Dean Cain wrote.
READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP
"I honestly had to check to see if this was a parody account," another Twitter user said in the comment section.
"Really?" wrote Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton.
NEW MEXICO RANCHER SLAMS BIDEN'S APPALLING BORDER POLICY: ABSOLUTELY A CRISIS
"What are you talking about?!?! I fly all the time and the only flights that do not have bathrooms are the puddle jumper flights that have like 10 seats and only fly 40-45 minutes," someone said.
"Oh fn lovely. Get ready for trans bathrooms big enough to hold a baby whale and the increase in ticket prices for the rest of us to make up for the missing row of seats," Newsmax's Rob Schmitt said.
"I thought you were fixing the border and doing AI regulation, but airplane bathrooms now" another individual posted in the comment section.
Story continues
Harris posted the tweet Tuesday evening, just hours after prompting sarcasm over her definition of transportation during a roundtable discussion.
"This issue of transportation is fundamentally about just making sure that people have the ability to get where they need to go! It's that basic," Harris said, to which Tomi Lahren responded "she's a genius" on Twitter,
"Kamala Harris gives voice to thought and then this nonsense comes out. She cant be serious," Republican communicator Steve Guest wrote of Harris' comment.
Fox News' Alexander Hall contributed to this report.
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Utah Gov. Spencer Cox wants to spare kids from their phones – Salt Lake Tribune
Posted: at 4:52 am
How much should 14-year-olds be on their phones? The effects of phones and social media on teenagers and adults continue to be at the center of public health, tech, civil liberties and more.
In March, Utahs Republican governor, Spencer Cox, signed an extensive package of laws intended to limit kids access to social media platforms, including time restrictions and requirements that parents and guardians have access to private messages and posts. On Sunday, he said that Utah in the coming months would file lawsuits to hold tech companies accountable.
Utahs laws were among the first in a tranche of actions by state governments, like those of Montana and Louisiana, which have greatly limited access to certain social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, either for minors or all users. Some researchers have alleged that social media is responsible for increases in anxiety and depression. If this was childhood cancer or childhood car accidents, or if we had seen these significant changes anywhere else, we would all be losing our minds about this, he told me.
The legislation is already facing legal challenges, as tech groups and libertarians balk at how involved the government will be in verifying users ages. But the governor told me he wasnt worried. When I asked if he had any hesitations about the bills he said simply, Uh, no.
This is the first in a series of Opinion Q. and A.s exploring modern conservatism today, its influence in society and politics, and how and why it differs (and doesnt) from the conservative movement that most Americans thought they knew. This interview has been edited for quality and clarity.
Jane Coaston: Utah has passed legislation that would bar people under the age of 18 from having social media accounts without the explicit consent of a parent or guardian, create a social media curfew of sorts, and give Utah parents and guardians access to the childrens posts and private messages. Why this legislation, and why now?
Gov. Spencer Cox: Theres a couple of reasons. Look, weve talked to mental health professionals across the state and across the country. Weve looked extensively at the research. Weve done our homework on this one. Weve spent time with parents and children, all across the state, and there is a general consensus and acknowledgment that social media and access to these devices is causing harm. Significant harm.
If you look at the increased rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm since about 2012, across the board but especially with young women, we have just seen exponential increases in those mental health concerns. Again, the research is telling us over and over and over again that it is not just correlated, but its being caused, at least in part, by the social media platforms.
[The C.D.C. found that in 2021, nearly three in five adolescent girls felt persistent sadness and one in three girls had seriously contemplated suicide. The rates of mental health issues reported has increased with every report since 2011.]
So we felt like we need to do something. If this was happening anywhere else, if this was childhood cancer or childhood car accidents, or if we had seen these significant changes anywhere else, we would, I think, all be losing our minds about this.
The second part of your question is, why now? And I think the better question is, why didnt we do this four or five years ago? Now because its sooner than tomorrow.
Coaston: You talked about the problems that could be caused by social media, but it seems as if the problems of social media and young people, they could be amorphous enough to invite potentially endless legislation. So what kinds of results are you looking for? What would tell you or the Utah legislature, yes, this is working, or no, it is not working?
Cox: The biggest results would be that we would see a decline in the terrible tragedies of anxiety, depression and self-harm. Those are the most important numbers that we look at, and that weve been following very closely. Over time, were hoping to see a decline back to close to pre-2012, 2013 levels.
Coaston: Last April you shared an article by Jonathan Haidt on Twitter, titled online Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid, and its about social media. And you said of the article, if I could convince every elected official, every voter, every citizen to read one thing today, it would be this. That leads me to think that your concerns about social media arent just about kids. Is that true?
Cox: That is absolutely true, yes.
Coaston: Is this about the types of platforms? Are these concerns about specific tech? Or something broader about social media, what these platforms mean now?
Cox: I think its all of those things. I do think its important though to separate them. And I think the answers to the problems that were facing are maybe different for the problem and the person.
Again, we have a longstanding tradition in our country of drawing lines around ages for brain development when it comes to certain activities. We dont let kids smoke or drink or drive a car before certain ages, because we know the danger and the damage that is being done there, and the science will back that up.
If I could wave the magic wand and have all adults spend less time on these devices, social media platforms, I would love to be able to do that. But that isnt something I could do. Its not something Im comfortable doing, and its not something that sits nicely within the general legal tradition of our country.
Coaston: Clearly parents could do this without the state getting involved. What are parents not doing that necessitates the state acting in their stead, or augmenting parents?
Cox: We talked to parents, including parents who are in this space. Parents who are psychiatrists, parents who deal with this every day. And what theyre saying is we need help. Even the parents who are the most engaged are desperate for some help, because of the other cultural forces that are just pushing this and making it so very difficult to deal with.
Just a couple of examples, right? One is the ability to have phones turn off or have these social media platforms disengaged at certain hours during the night. Thats something that parents can override, but setting that as a standard and helping them to understand how important this is again from a scientific standpoint, that sleep at that age with developing brains and having that time off from 10:30 at night until 6:30 in the morning, that that can make such a huge difference.
Coaston: There are still a lot of tensions within the conservative movement between a more libertarian viewpoint on, whether its social media or pretty much anything else, about protecting children and certain ideas about family.
Why do you think that there have been more conservatives, whether in Utah or elsewhere, who have been saying, look, libertarianism hasnt led to what we wanted it to do. We have to step in, its time for the government to play a role in how parents parent.
[The Electronic Frontier Foundation opposed the legislation, arguing, Utahs bill is part of a wave of age verification laws that would make users less secure, and make internet access less private overall. EFF opposes laws that mandate age-verification requirements, and Utahs S.B. 152 would be one of the worst weve seen.]
Cox: Well, look, were not telling parents how to parent. The law empowers parents. It doesnt tell parents what they have to do at all. Again, if they want their kids to be on social media at 4 in the morning, they have the ability to allow their kids to do that.
This is giving more tools to parents. So I will push back as vehemently as possible about that narrative, because its wrong. And thats dishonest by the libertarians that are using that narrative that the state is trying to take over for parents. Theyre lying to you about that, because thats not what the law does and they know it, but they know thats an argument they lose every time.
I come from that libertarian background and line of thinking. And it works great with adults. Save those arguments for the adults, but spare me the kids.
Coaston: So I think that Utah has taken a more expansive view with online restrictions on adult material, and now with social media. Are there any trade-offs youre worried about? I know that youve heard from some of the tech lobbies, but as much as people talk about teen anxiety and depression, Im also sure that lots of teens have found a lot of support on TikTok or social media when theyre in a tough home. Are there any concerns that you have about this legislation?
Cox: Uh, no.
Coaston: What other leaders in your party do you think have good ideas about social media? Who are you listening to and who are you reading?
Cox: Weve mentioned Jonathan; Jean Twenge has been fantastic on this issue. Shes got her new book Generations. Shes been really important.
[Twenges 2017 book iGen argued that cellphones and social media were having an outsize and negative effect on the lives of teenagers and young adults.]
And these arent partisan people, these are on the research and the science side. Were working with anybody thats interested in this space, and weve had other governors who have reached out to us. Im really interested in Montana, their decision to ban TikTok completely. Thats a step we have not taken. We did ban TikTok on state devices, and of course TikTok is subject to the social media legislation that we passed. But a complete ban on TikTok is one that were watching very closely. We have a year to implement this, and were working through that process now.
[Montanas ban on TikTok would impose a $10,000-a-day fine on TikTok or app companies that make the app available within the state beginning on Jan. 1, 2024. TikTok has filed a lawsuit arguing that the ban violates the First Amendment and is also funding a lawsuit led by a group of the apps users in the state.]
We knew that there would be some problem points that we would have to work through with the social media companies. And we dont hate business. We want business to be able to thrive and succeed. But we also want people to be held accountable.
Coaston: Yeah, Id be interested to think about those tweaks, because you mentioned that you would know that this was working if you saw rates of depression or rates of suicides going down. What would be the next step if you didnt see the results that you wanted to see? Would there be a moment when youd say that maybe age verification isnt enough? Maybe its time to ban TikTok? Maybe its time to go past where youve gone right now?
Cox: Its hard to answer that. It wont even take effect until next year. So were a couple of years away from seeing the true impact of this, and a lot can change in a couple of years. What I really hope is that over the course of the next year or two, we have a Congress that is engaged here.
I really do think this is the one area where there is just such a broad agreement. The president in his State of the Union address has brought this up. Ive had calls from members of Congress, senators on the left and the right, that are looking at this.
Its because theyre real people and theyre parents, and theyre all (laughs) theyre all dying with this too. And its not just that kids understand it. Its fun sometimes in the media to kind of posit this as like an old man shaking his fist at the clouds, versus kids these days.
I toured 29 schools in the past two months, and I asked the question, do you think social media is causing harm to your generation? They do. They know that this is causing harm, and theyre so often desperate for help.
I guess my point is, I hope that there will be a collective desire to try to solve this. I dont know if ours is the one thats going to solve it. I certainly hope so. Weve put a lot of thought into it. But Im not going to stand here and tell you what we did is perfect and its the right solution.
Coaston: All of your kids have grown up in the social media era. So obviously if youre a little bit older, you might not have gotten on TikTok when you were in eighth grade. Or a little younger, this might have just been what you grew up with. How have their experiences differed? Is there anything that you would have done differently? What has your experience of parenting kids in the social media age been like?
Cox: Yeah. I will say it has been very different across that gap. My oldest, he just graduated from college. My youngest is a sophomore in high school. With my oldest, social media was there, but it was just never that big of a deal. Didnt spend much time on it. Never got addicted to it. We certainly learned as we went along, and to the point now where my daughter does not have social media. Shes the only one among her friends who does not have social media.
But they share videos with her, and were constantly having to try to figure out how long has she been on her phone, and your phone doesnt go in your bedroom at night. Weve set those rules. And it is a constant battle, even though she doesnt have social media accounts.
Shes pushed back hard. That is a battle that we have with her that we did not have with our older kids. My wife will tell you the same thing, that if we had to do it all over again, we would have waited much longer to give our kids a smart device.
Its not just the social media, but its the time spent on that device away from other things. Every hour spent on that device is an hour not spent face to face or engaging or doing something else.
Coaston: How has this shifted your own view and use of social media? Because I think its kind of funny to be having this conversation. I mentioned that Atlantic article that you recommended, but you recommended it on social media.
Cox: I did.
Coaston: I think that theres been a lot of conversation about the threats of social media that were having on social media, which is kind of ironic to me. Has it changed how you think about using social media? How often youre using social media? Your own use of these platforms?
Cox: So let me assure you that I am very self-aware.
I recognize the irony, and this is something that I share with young people as well. Social media, it has positives as well. Again, we could theoretically just ban all social media for kids under the age of 18. Thats not what I wanted. I want the ability for people to connect on social media, in the ways that we originally used social media for. The kind of the good parts of social media, the pieces that we all thought were going to help make our country a better place.
Sadly that has not happened. And so, I am trying to take some of that advice. I have significantly changed the way I use Twitter. I engage a little less. And this is, this is the sad part too. I mean, I used to love being able to engage with people. I admitted this I created a burner account. Not to go on and, you know, say great things about Governor Cox, or anything like that. The purpose of my burner account is it just follows a select group. Because I do get a lot of my media intakes, the reporters, the news that I get. I curate that through social media and through Twitter, and thats really important for me.
Coaston: What does this mean for social media in Utah for everyone? You mentioned a little bit your increasing concerns, but I think that there are lots of people who routinely describe problems with social media, adults who are saying things like, theyre on it too much, its stressful, its bad. Its making our discourse worse. Do you think thats something that obviously what adults do is a very different area but is that something that could potentially lead to some sort of legislation in the future?
Cox: I dont know if we can legislate that piece. Again, I think this is where the hard work of culture changing and of being a patriotic American actually takes place. Youre going to hear me talk a lot more about this over the course of the next year.
Im really focused on how to disagree better and the toxicity of this moment, and how we can, as political leaders, but as just neighbors, as human beings. I dont pretend like Im going to be able to solve that. We have a problem as a country, and it is getting worse, and these social media platforms undoubtedly are designed to make it worse, right? Im hoping I can convince more and more adults to stop making those poor decisions. But I dont know that theres a significant piece of legislation to allow that to happen. We may learn some things from these kids accounts that are helpful. Maybe some things around addictive algorithms and giving people the ability to turn those off.
But I dont know that theres an appetite for that. I dont know if I have an appetite for that either. Im much more of a, when it comes to adults, kind of, you know, let people decide and make those choices, and try to show them the better way.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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Kari Lake in Tucson: "I’m actually eyeing the Senate race" – KGUN 9 Tucson News
Posted: at 4:52 am
TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) Former Governor candidate Kari Lake came to Tucson Wednesday to promote her new book. She ran for Arizona Governor in 2022, but Katie Hobbs was declared the winner.
Lake presented several legal challenges to the election outcome in court, though the lawsuits have continued to uphold the certified election results.
She drew a large crowd to Firetruck Brewing on Grant to promote her new book, "Unafraid."
We asked Lake if she plans to run for U.S. Senate. She says shes still occupied with her legal challenge to the result of the Governors election but is thinking of a run for Senate.
So we'll be making a decision on that in the next couple of months and we'll see," Lake says. "I'm actually eyeing the Senate race. It's something I'm considering.
Lake did not answer a question about whether she aspires to run for Vice President in the coming Presidential election.
A look at Arizona's 2024 U.S. Senate candidates, so far:
Sixteen Arizonans have filed a statement of interest in running for U.S. Senate in 2024, according to the Secretary of State's website. The statement of interest indicates that they're collecting petition signatures for a possible nomination.
Here's the field as it currently stands:
Democrat
Libertarian
Republican
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Kari Lake in Tucson: "I'm actually eyeing the Senate race" - KGUN 9 Tucson News
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Q&A with Gary Swing | Veteran minor party candidate advocates for … – coloradopolitics.com
Posted: at 4:52 am
Gary Swinghas run for office on minor party tickets a dozen times in three states since 1996 and is seeking the Colorado Unity Party's nomination on next year's ballot in the 3rd Congressional District.
The 55-year-old Boulder resident and Colorado Unity Party state secretary hasn't won any of the elections he's competed in, but tells Colorado Politics he continues to run to bring attention to issues given short shrift by the major parties. He's also making a point about representation, arguing that the country's current election system, dominated by the Democratic and Republican parties, leaves many voters without a meaningful voice in their government.
Swing supports a move from winner-take-all, single-member districts toward proportional representation, which would allow voters who make up a small percentage of the electorate to have a representative on legislative bodies, from city council to state legislatures and Congress.
Over the years, Swing has run for state representative, the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate and president under a variety of banners, most often affiliated with the Green Party, but lately as the nominee of the Unity Party following a break with the Colorado Greens. (The Green and Unity parties are two of Colorado's seven officially recognized minor political parties, a list that also includes the Libertarians and the American Constitution Party.)
In 2020, Swing filed to run in Vermont as the Boiling Frog Party candidate for president. Later that year, he appeared on ballots in Colorado as the Unity Party's nominee in the 2nd Congressional District. He was the minor party's nominee for Colorado secretary of state last year. He finished in fifth place with less than 0.5% of the vote, behind Jena Griswold, the Democratic incumbent, who won, followed by the Republican, the Libertarian and the American Constitution Party nominee, but ahead of the Approval Voting Party candidate.
Swing grew up in New Jersey and describes himself as a lifelong pacifist and advocate for nonviolence. He holds a bachelor's degree in political science and a masters in public administration from the University of Colorado. He's a spokesperson for the Boulder-based Best Democracy organization and a former national advisory board member for theCenter for Voting and Democracy, which since changed its name to FairVote, but leftthe group when it focused on promoting ranked choice voting instead of proportional representation.
When he isn't politicking, Swing gets in his steps in a big way. He's completed the triple crown of backpacking completing theAppalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail and hiked the entireColorado Trail, Arizona Trail, Ouachita Trail, Ozark Highlands Trail and Lone Star Trail. He's also hiked to the highest point in all 64 Colorado counties and climbed all 637 Colorado mountains over 13,000 feet.
Our interview with Swing has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Colorado Politics: The Colorado Libertarians recently came to an agreement with the state GOP not to put up candidates in competitive races, in an attempt avoid being a spoiler, if they consider the Republican nominee sufficiently liberty-minded, and you responded by saying that the Colorado Unity Party welcome spoilers and candidates of all kind. How does the Libertarians' and Republicans' deal figure in third-party politics here in Colorado?
Gary Swing: I'm not a member of the Libertarian Party, but it's really not legitimate for a recognized political party to tell members that they can't seek the party's nomination for any office. That's for the voters to decide, and ultimately, it's up to the members of Libertarian Party themselves to decide whether or not to run a candidate.
Under state law, any candidate who gets at least 30% of the vote at a party assembly qualifies for a primary ballot. If a person is really determined to run for office as a candidate of any recognized party, they can bypass the party assembly and petition on their primary ballot. The only way to stop someone from running on the party's ballot line would be for another candidate to defeat them in a primary. Of course, in 2019, Democratic state legislators vastly increased the number of petition signatures needed for independent candidates and candidates for minor party primaries. Now it's much harder for someone to go around minor party nominating process.
CP: You're the state secretary for the Unity Party, and you're seeking the Unity Party nomination in the 3rd Congressional District. What brought you to the Unity Party after running with the Greens for so long?
Swing:I have a long history of involvement with the Green Party, mostly in Colorado, some in Arizona and elsewhere. I was on the ballot seven times overall as a Green Party candidate. The Green Party in Colorado was taken over by a faction that has systematically purged many former Green Party candidates, activists, organizers and local chapters from the right to participate. The Greens are seeking to exclude as many people as possible from their process. The Unity Party has a process that's pretty much the opposite.
The Unity Party was started as a centrist party, but it has evolved into an organization that celebrates diversity and inclusion. We offer an open and democratic process for political independents and free thinkers to seek our nomination and get on the ballot for county, state or federal offices in Colorado. In the last two general elections, the Unity Party was in fourth place after the Libertarian Party for the most candidates on Colorado's ballot. We had 12 candidates in Colorado the ballot in 2020 and eight in 2020. The Unity Party describes itself as neither left nor right, but we welcome potential candidates from across the political spectrum to pitch their own campaign message at our nominating assembly.
It takes 30% of the vote that are assembling to qualify for a primary ballot. So far, we've avoided holding a contested primary. If one of our candidates doesn't place first for nomination, we encourage them to put their name in for a different office. The Unity Party is a party of friendship. We try to treat each other with respect. Our mission statement says as members of the Unity Party, we focus on similarities rather than differences. We are nonpartisan. We are a blending of diverse parties, political ideals, cultures, sexualities and genders, religions, spiritual practices, ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds. We welcome progressives, conservatives, outliers, nonconformists and those from all political parties.
The Unity Party does have members across the country, but we only have ballot status as a recognized political party in Colorado. That means we're able to nominate candidates for all offices by party assembly. We encourage people to come out and seek our nomination. We'd like to recruit more women or people of color to run as candidates.
The United States has always had a political system that's been heavily dominated by white male conservatives, and we still see that today in the Republican Party. We see that in pretty much all alternative parties. Frankly, the Democrats are really the most diverse party in the United States right now. But still, the United States lags behind most of the world in representation of women or people of color, and also alternative parties in government. We want to give people who feel excluded from the political process an opportunity to participate, to get their message out and to take a stand for what they believe in.
I first thought about joining the Unity Party when I was on the Appalachian Trail hiking [it] for the second time. I was reading a book about Nelson Mandela trying to achieve unity in a post-apartheid South Africa, and I thought that his message of unity in diversity was was a good message, and that the United States and South Africa have a similar history of white supremacy racism, slavery in the United States, apartheid in South Africa and we have a long way to go in overcoming the disparities that resulted from a systematic racial discrimination.
CP: What do you see the role of minor parties and independent candidates in Colorado as being?
Swing: Minor political parties inject new ideas and diversity of perspectives into politics, and we can shift the debate on issues. Alternative parties offer a different perspective to voters. It gives them an opportunity to support to vote for someone other than the two establishment parties on a ballot that tends to be a limited choice between candidates you may not support.
I've said before, everyone owns their own vote; no one is entitled to a person's vote. Democrats often say that you must vote for Democrats in order to preserve democracy. And yet, Democrats in Colorado and elsewhere try to keep independent, alternative party candidates off the ballot through restrictive ballot access laws.
Under the winner-take-all voting system, it's true, minor party candidates really have very little representation in government. There are more than 519,000 elected offices in the United States, including small local offices. Less than one out of 1,000 offices in the United States is held by a member of a party other than the Democrats and the Republicans. There are more than 7,000 state legislative seats in the country. Almost all of them are held by Democrats and Republicans.
Libertarians are the third largest party, but they only have one state representative, in Vermont, and that was someone who was elected as a Republican and then switched after they were elected to become a Libertarian Party member. The Green Party is the fourth largest party in the country, and they currently have no members of any state legislature in the United States. They've only four times elected a Green Party member as a state legislator, and in every case it was under unusual circumstances. So it's very difficult to actually get elected to partisan office in the United States under the winner-take-all voting system as a candidate of a party other than the Democrats or Republicans.
CP:You ran as the Green Party nominee for the U.S. Senate in Arizona in 2016 against John McCain and Anne Kirkpatrick, on the "boiling frog party" theme, is that right?
Gary Swing, wearing a "Save the Frogs" T-shirt, poses for a photograph in front of the Colorado State Capitol in Denver.
Swing:I created a website with a satirical campaign message, and I ended up getting 5.5% of the vote, 138,634 votes, which was the highest percentage and highest number of votes cast for any Green candidate for any U.S. Senate seat out of the last six general elections.
One of my favorite things about being a political candidate has been injecting some humor into politics, which tends to be toxic and nasty. When I ran as a Green candidate, I tended to have a serious, straightforward platform. My Green Party campaigns for U.S. representative and state representative were prescriptive message campaigns focusing on policy proposals. When I ran satirical campaigns as a "boiling frog party" candidate for U.S. Senate and for president in Vermont in 2020, my message was focused on describing the reality of the harm that human impact has had on the ecosystem.
My message as a boiling frog party candidate went beyond what I felt comfortable saying as a Green Party candidate. Human overpopulation and overconsumption has resulted in the mass extinction of animal species over the past 200 years, human beings and livestock have largely displaced about 96% of the biomass of global wildlife mammal species. The mass of plastic now outweighs all animal life on Earth. The amount of human-made material outweighs plant and animal life on Earth. Human beings are just one of millions of species in an interdependent web of life, yet an industrialized human civilization of 8 billion people has created a toxic artificial environment.
CP:Do you think people heard your message, running what you call a satirical, zero-dollar campaign?
Swing: It's hard to gauge that, really. I did get some press in the Phoenix newspaper, I had a website, I had a page with a candidate statement on secretary of state's website, but it's really hard to know how many people voted for me just because I was the only other candidate who wasn't a Democrat or a Republican on the ballot, and how many people might have actually gotten to hear my message.
CP:Did you feel like you were a spoiler?
Swing: No, not at all. It was a landslide reelection for John McCain. He was a former Republican nominee for president, it was clear from the beginning that he was going to win reelection. I was surprised two years later when the US Senate election was so close for [Democrat] Kyrsten Sinema,
CP: In 2018, you helped recruit Angela Green to run for the U.S. Senate in Arizona, and she got attention as a potential spoiler.
Swing: That's right. I reached out to Angela Green. I saw that Angela Green had filed as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate because I was following filings with the secretary of state's office down there. Her message was that she wanted to legalize marijuana, she made a statement, "Make love not war." Her candidate statement seemed like it was a moderate version of the Green Party's message, which now has moved pretty far to the left.
I wrote to her and I said, "You're not going to get on the ballot, you're not going to make much headway running as a Democrat." But under the quirky situation, they have in Arizona, if you file as a write-in candidate for an uncontested primary for a new political party, which legally the Green Party was at that time, you only need to get more write-in votes than any other candidate to qualify for the general election ballot with the party's nomination. And as a result of my writing to her, she switched from the Democrats to the Greens. She was the only candidate to file and got on the ballot as a Green Party candidate.
It was her first campaign I think she wasn't prepared for what happened. She made national headlines when the election was so close, with people calling her a spoiler, trying to intimidate her into dropping out of the election. There was a lot of bullying and harassment going on. And I felt sad that she was subjected to all of that, and I wasn't sure that she was prepared for the reaction that people had to her simply being a candidate not necessarily (to) anything she said, but people were angry that she had the audacity simply to file as a candidate for public office.
I think there should be more candidates from more parties on the ballot, not just two candidates, and not just three or four. I'd like to see 20 candidates or 30 candidates on the ballot, like they have in Australia. And if we had a proportional representation voting system, then you wouldn't have to worry about the idea of spoiling an election for a candidate who might be a little closer to your position than the other major party candidate.
Alternative party candidates don't take votes away from major party candidates. Major party candidates take votes away from alternative party candidates. No one says, "Oh, the Democrat can't possibly win, I'm going to vote for the Green Party candidate instead." But they do the opposite for the Democrats. People who vote for alternative party candidates are either expressing their true preference, or they're expressing a protest vote against the establishment candidates who they feel don't represent them.
The Democrats and Republicans should campaign for people's votes rather than trying to convince other candidates that they must drop out or else they'll threaten to spoil on election for one of the establishment parties.
CP:You've long been an advocate for proportional representation, and are not a fan of instant runoff, or ranked-choice voting. Colorado also has the Approval Voting Party. What do you see as the advantages of proportional voting over these other methods of conducting elections?
Swing:All single-winner voting methods exclude political minorities from representation. The term ranked-choice voting is often used to refer to a winner-take-all voting method, also known as instant runoff voting. This is a ranked voting method, single member districts. Ranked voting could also be used in multi-member districts to provide proportional or semi proportional representation.
The more seats that are elected in a district, the more inclusive and fully representative results are; however, the ballot also becomes longer and more unwieldy. The election reform group Best Democracy proposes to elect Colorado's state legislature by hybrid proportional representation: 80% of Colorado's state legislators would be elected from seven-member districts using a single transferable vote method of ranked-choice voting. Under this system, it would take about 12.5% of the vote to elect a state representative to a multi-member district seat. To make the system more inclusive, the remaining 20% of seats would be leveling seats elected from party lists.
Any party that gets at least 3% of the party list vote would win seats from the party list. Overall representation in the legislature would be proportional to the party list vote. This should produce a state legislature with about eight to 10 parties represented, not just two parties. About 98% of voters would be able to elect representatives of their choice.
Everyone should be able to elect representatives of their choice. That's the point of proportional representation. Ninety-five countries use some form of proportional representation to elect legislators.
Proportional representation makes every vote count. No minor party has been elected to Congress since since 1970. Green Party candidates have been running in the U.S. since 1985, Libertarian candidates been writing since 1972, and yet, we have no Green Party or Libertarian Party candidates holding any statewide office, only one Libertarian state legislator, less than one out of 1,000 seats. If the United States used a party list system of proportional representation, a party supported by 5% of votes should now have at least 22 U.S. representatives and at least 369 seats in state legislatures. Proportional representation provides better representation for women, racial minorities and smaller parties in government.
CP:Short of changing the whole system, are there some changes Colorado can make in the near future to better reflect the will of the voters, to move toward what you're talking about?
Swing:In 2019 and in 2021, Democrats in the Colorado state legislature passed broad-based election reform packages that included provisions to vastly increase the number of petition signatures required for independent candidates to get on the ballot in Colorado, and also to end the filing fee option for independent candidates for president, which will vastly reduce the number of options that people have on the ballot for president in 2024 and future elections, if that stands.
The United States generally has some of the worst ballot access laws in the world. Colorado had some better ballot access laws from 1995 until 2019, because a coalition of political parties, the Colorado Coalition for Fair and Open Elections, successfully lobbied the state legislature to make ballot access easier for independent candidates and for alternative parties.
I would like to see the Colorado state legislature repeal the changes that were passed to make it harder for independent candidates to get on the ballot and, in fact, to move in the opposite direction to make it easier. I think the filing fee option for president was a good idea. It used to take $1,000 to put an independent presidential ticket on a ballot in Colorado. We do tend to have too many people run for top offices, but I'd like to see the filing fee option extended to all offices in Colorado say, $1,000 for president, $500 for other statewide offices, $200 for a U.S. representative, $100 for the state legislature, maybe $50 for county offices. That would make it easier for more people to participate in the political process.
Secretary of State Jenna Griswold has said that she wants everyone's voice to be heard, including unaffiliated voters, and yet she helped craft and lobby for legislation to suppress unaffiliated candidates. Colorado Senate President Stephen Fenberg, who represents the district where I live currently, he says that everyone should have a seat at the table, yet he carried Senate Bill 21-250 to keep independent presidential candidates off Colorado's ballot. He was also the Senate sponsor for the Colorado Votes Act. House Bill 19-1278, which restricts petitioning for independent candidates.
The Democrats are really the party that represents political minorities, women, people who have historically felt excluded from the political process, and the Democrats dominate both houses of the state legislature, they dominate statewide offices. I'd like to see some Democratic legislators come out and say, "Well, we didn't support this, it was part of a broad package of election reform changes." So I'd like to see someone from the Democratic side of the legislature, preferably, introduce a bill to repeal the ballot access restrictions and improve ballot access for independent candidates for elections. Anyone in the legislature could do it, but the Democrats have a supermajority right now.
CP: You've been running for office since 1996, is that right? What motivates you to keep doing this?
Gary Swing poses for a photograph on Springer Mountain, Georgia, at the end of a southbound hike on the Appalachian Trail.
Swing: Every time I run, I say this is the last time I'm going to be a candidate. Politics is toxic. I feel like I'm beating my head against a brick wall. And yet, I'm still frustrated with the system.
I started out running as a candidate because I wanted to be an anti-war message candidate. Back in 1996, the Green Party of Colorado encouraged me to run for the smallest partisan office I could, and run to win. So I ran for state representative, which in Denver was the smallest partisan office I could run for. And I put a lot of effort into that campaign, and I got 8.5% of the vote in a three-way race. The Republican candidate, I think, was nominated last minute and really was just a line-holder, but not much more than that, and got 13.5% of the vote. It was the most heavily Democratic, least Republican district in the entire state, and walking door to door, trying to run a serious campaign, being in candidate forums, being in voter education guides, distributing literature door to door, I still got just 8.5% of the vote as a Green Party candidate. It was better than any other independent or third party candidate in the state running against both a Democrat and Republican. Still, it's a tiny minority of the vote.
At some point, I'll say I've had enough, I'm done doing this. But one thing or another happens, like when I was kicked out of the Green Party in Colorado. If someone tells me I can't do something that makes me want to do it. If someone tries to bully or exclude you from participation, that creates more motivation to say, "I'm going to do it anyway." So that's part of my my argument against the spoiler effect. If you tell people they can't run for office because they're going to spoil an election, that's just going to motivate them to run for an office where they can be a spoiler or be perceived as a spoiler.
I recognize the reality that under the system we have, the Democrats and Republicans are the only viable political parties. I think if I were going to leave alternative party politics, the time to have done it would have been 1996 on election night. I should have said, "I'm done with this." I actually liked Penfield Tate, who was my Democratic opponent in 1996. I called him to congratulate him before the polls were closed. I said, "I know what the demographics are, you're going to win, congratulations." And he and I were on friendly terms. I enjoyed going to campaign events with him. I supported him when he ran for mayor of Denver. He invited me to visit him in the state legislature, invited me to sit in his seat on the floor of the House, which is nice.
When I ran in 1996, I had some vague notion that I was trying to run to win, but I still realized how much the system was stacked against alternative party candidates. Since then, I've very openly run as a protest candidate without the expectation that I could win.
I think people have an unrealistic expectation of what their results will be as an alternative party candidate. Running as alternative party candidate does give people an opportunity to participate in the system and get some experience. Some people start with an alternative party and then move to the Democrats or Republicans when they realize they just can't win, they can't get very far as an alternative party candidate. And that's a product of the system we have in the United States.
We have Green Party candidates in at least 30 national legislatures around the world, and that's because they use proportional representation. With our single-member district, winner-take-all voting system, we're tilting at windmills as alternative party candidates. I think once people realize that, they either leave and join a major party or they campaign for fundamental election reform.
Unfortunately, a lot of people have the idea that just changing the system to a different winner-take-all voting methods in single member districts will change it and open the process for alternative parties. But you need proportional representation so that everyone has fair representation. That's how most of the modern world does it.
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Jonah Goldberg: A NeverTrumper’s Take on the 2024 Election – Reason
Posted: at 4:52 am
Over the past quarter-century, Jonah Goldberg has made his name as one of the most provocative and unapologetic conservative journalists around. He was the editor of National Review Online for years before leaving over differences related to Donald Trump and he's penned bestselling books such as Liberal Fascism and Suicide of the West. He was a Fox News contributor for years, resigning in 2021 in protest of the channel's airing of Tucker Carlson's documentary Patriot Purge.
Along with former Weekly Standard editor Steve Hayes (who also resigned from Fox over the Carlson documentary), he founded The Dispatch in 2019. He also hosts the popular podcast The Remnant.
At a recent event in New York City, I talked with him about the fracturing of the political right into groups such as national conservatives, integralists, Never Trumpers, anti-Trumpers, and more. We also discussed the 2024 election and whether libertarians and conservatives can get along.
Previous appearances:
Jonah Goldberg on Why He Left National Review, Dislikes Sean Hannity and Seb Gorka, and Is Inching Toward Libertarianism, December 4, 2019
Is Jonah Goldberg Turning Into a Libertarian? It Sure Sounds Like It., July 5, 2017
Jonah Goldberg on The Tyranny of Cliches, Creating NRO, and the Firing of John Derbyshire, May 31, 2012
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Geopolitical duel in the Pacific: Solomon Islands security at risk as … – The Interpreter
Posted: July 11, 2023 at 3:04 pm
Australias Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles landed in Honiara, the capital of Solomon Islands, last week for talks on the future of Australias defence and policing presence in the country. The day before Marles arrived in Honiara he suggested that the Australian-led Solomon Islands International Assistance Force (SIAF) could remain in Solomon Islands beyond the missions expiration date of December this year.
This was a miscalculation. Marles signalling that Australia is interested in an enduring security presence in Solomon Islands would likely have been viewed in Honiara as pre-empting the outcome of their discussions.
Under pressure since the signing of the security agreement with China in 2022, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare responded during Marles visit by calling for a review of the Australia-Solomon Islands bilateral security treaty under which the SIAF is deployed. The treaty provides the legal basis for the rapid deployment of Australian police, defence and other personnel in the event of a major security challenge or humanitarian emergency and at the request of Solomon Islands. It also provides for third countries to contribute to the deployment with the consent of Solomon Islands. Under this provision New Zealand and Fiji deployed with the SIAF Sogavare has not stipulated what aspects of the bilateral security treaty with Australia he wishes to be reviewed.
Competition is most visibly playing out in the countrys security sector as Solomon Islands hedges its two competing security partners.
The SIAF comprising of Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji first deployed to Solomon Islands following the riots in November 2021. Papua New Guinea provided security personnel under a separate bilateral agreement with Solomon Islands. In March the following year the SIAF deployment was extended to assist Solomon Islands with operational readiness and security planning in the lead up to the Pacific Games, which will run from 19 November to 2 December 2023. At the time the SIAF was extended, then prime minister Scott Morrison insisted it was a short-term deployment, dismissing comparisons to the 14-year Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands.
Geopolitical competition has intensified in Solomon Islands since it switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 2019. This competition is most visibly playing out in the countrys security sector as Solomon Islands hedges its two competing security partners, and Australia and China in turn jostle for advantage, influence and presence.
Solomon Islands has successfully leveraged geopolitical competition to meet its security interests. Australia has long dominated the security sector in Solomon Islands. However, the Solomon Islands 2020 National Security Strategy provided early indications that it would seek partnerships with friendly foreign governments to address security gaps. In 2022 Sogavare referred to Australia as the security partner of choice but went on to say that for Solomon Islands to meet its security needs, the diversification of security partners was necessary.
Enter China.
In 2022, China announced that it was not seeking a sphere of influence in the Pacific but that it is a direct stakeholder in the security of the South Pacific. This was the first time China had publicly stated this and it can be seen most visibly in its security cooperation with Solomon Islands. That year Solomon Islands and China signed a succession of highly scrutinised security agreements, a policing agreement which formalised the presence of the China Police Liaison Team to Solomon Islands (CPLT) following the November 2021 riots, and the Framework Agreement on Security Cooperation which provides for Chinese military and other security personnel to be deployed in response to a crisis and at the request of Solomon Islands.
Countries should heed the concerns raised within the region about the impact of geopolitical competition on Pacific security sectors.
Competition in the security sector has since escalated as have concerns about the ways in which geopolitical competition is intersecting with and exacerbating local security dynamics. These concerns include distrust of the local police. Concern was raised first about the Chinese Embassys importation of 95 replica rifles and 95 replica pistols into Solomon Islands in February which bypassed port authorities, and later about Australias donation of 60 semi-automatic rifles (with specialist training included). Opposition leader Mathew Wale warned against the militarisation of Solomon Islands and accused Australia of making the donation purely to stop China building up its influence in the police force.
These concerns also include Solomon Islands Chinese communities who have been targeted during riots. In 2016 when I was researching private security companies in Solomon Islands as part of a Pacific Islands Forum-UNDP project on private security sector governance in the Pacific, Fijian private security personnel were highly visible patrolling Chinatown. Shop owners said it increased their sense of security as most of the private security personnel were former Fijian military. Fast forward to 2022 and a contact centre between the CPLT and the Solomon Islands Chinese Association has been established, its secretary telling the Global Times that Now we, the Chinese here, have gained a greater sense of security.
There are worrying points of potential friction such as the Pacific Games which begin in November. Australia and China will each retain a security presence mission in Solomon Islands throughout this year and potentially into 2024. Australia has voiced concerns about how effectively Australian and Chinese police forces currently on the ground would be able to cooperate, particularly with respect to unity of command. The protection of Chinese citizens and property, particularly major projects such as the Pacific Games infrastructure is a core tenet of Chinese security cooperation in the Solomon Islands.
And in that, countries should heed the concerns raised within the region about the impact of geopolitical competition on Pacific security sectors. The Pacific Islands Forum Pacific Security Outlook 2022-2023 highlighted the increased tempo of engagement by security partners. The competing and non-aligned security partners, it suggested, could overwhelm and undermine peace and security efforts.
*This article is based on research examining the geopolitical drivers of security assistance in Solomon Islands and which was first presented at the Pacific Islands Strategic Dialogue hosted by the National Bureau of Asian Research and University of the South Pacific in Fiji, 3-4 April, 2023. The research is funded by the New Zealand Multi Agency Research Network and Massey University.
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Lake Champlain trip highlights paddling and campground amenities – Adirondack Explorer
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The Champlain Bridge marks the way on a trip up Lake Champlain by kayak. Photo by Brian Nearing
A kayak, a car and two weeks on the water
By Brian Nearing
With the Adirondack Mountains to the west, New Yorks shoreline on Lake Champlain is branded recreationally as the Adirondack Coast. This 120-mile lake flows north, making this coasts unofficial starting point the lake headwaters in South Bay, just north of the historic village of Whitehall in northern Washington County.
Having kayaked several times in South Bays shallow, milky waters from a state boat launch off State Route 22, I often wondered about the lakes distant northern outlet, at the Richelieu River, which runs through Quebec to the St. Lawrence River and ultimately the Atlantic Ocean at the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Last summer offeredtwo weeksto make that trip, driving, camping, and kayaking along portions of a lake with a whopping 587 miles of shoreline in New York, Vermont and Quebec. It could at best be a snapshot, not a detailed portrait.
South Bay forms a southeastern portion of the Adirondack Parks Blue Line, which runs northward through the lake about 80 miles to the Valcour Island Primitive Area, near the town of Peru in Clinton County. From South Bay and its handful of private camps, the lakemoves slowly north past cliff-lined wetlands of the lower lake up to the beginning of the wider lake beyond Ticonderoga.
It takes up to three years for the bays water to drain north through the lake to the Richelieu, according to Lake Champlain Basin Commission, but I didnt have that kind of leisure time.
Starting from a camp just north of South Bay in late July, a short hop led to the Crown Point State Park Campground in the shadow of the graceful arch of Crown Point Bridge and a historic lighthouse. This Vermont connection opened in 2011 after the unstable old bridge, which dated to when Franklin D. Roosevelt was governor of New York, was closed and demolished.
The grassy, wooded campground offered 66 campsites that were fairly spaced out, as well as hot showers, a trailer dump station, a recycling center, a small picnic area, and firewood sales.
The parks boat launch provided easy and immediate access to paddle beneath and around the bridge, as well an opportunity to take out at a small museum on the Vermont side at the Chimney Point State Historic Site, where a steel pier from the old bridge remains on display outside. Tucked in along a retaining wall, I found a beautifully painted rock hidden by someone who is part of a Facebook group called VT Rocks. The group promotes the creation and scattering of such tiny artworks.
For the ambitious paddler, the lakefront town of Port Henry was more than a mile north across the neck of Bulwagga Bay, but I was content to meander along the Vermont shoreline at Chimney Point, before turning back to the New York side and a rocky take-out just above Coffin Point.
The next day, the bridge at Crown Point provided a route into Vermont and a dozen miles northward to Button Bay State Park, located on the lake about an hours drive south of Burlington.
Located in Ferrisburgh on a bluff overlooking the lake, this 253-acre park has 53 tent/RV sites, 12 lean-tos, and four cabins.
Button Bay is so named for the button-like concretions formed by clay shoreline deposits. These geologic formations are created during several centuries as clays collected around plant stalks. When the plant stem dies and rots away, whats left behind resembles a rock with a hole drilled in its center.
Wind was light and the water calm on the bay, allowing a short and easy paddle from the parks boat launch to the bays namesake 1.5-acre limestone island. This natural area, with sweeping lake views, contains foundational ruins of a 19th century summer home of a wealthy New York City art dealer, and trails to explore.
In the car, my route backtracked into New York and Crown Point and then again northward on Route 9N, to Port Henry, a self-proclaimed home of Champ, the mythical Lake Champlain monster, and during the 19thand mid-20thcenturies, the actual home of a thriving port to service the areas many small iron furnaces and canal traffic. The village has a beach and picnic area named for its famous aquatic denizen. Each summer, a Champ festival is held, featuring cardboard boat races, movies on the beach, and other family events.
A boat launch offered easy lake access and another view of the Crown Point Bridge, but I had a schedule to keep.
An hours drive north at Cumberland Bay State Park in Plattsburgh, I camped a short walk from the shoreline. The 350-acre park has more than 150 tent/RV sites, a broad, sandy swimming beach, and a new bathhouse and family-friendly playground. The wind here was too brisk for safe kayaking, but a swim was possible.
After a comfortable night tenting, I continued northward to Rouses Point, the gateway to the Canadian border crossing as well as to a bridge to the Champlain Islands, including the Alburgh Tongue, a small peninsula extending from Canada into Lake Champlain, and thus surrounded by water.
Alburgh contained numerous boat launches, including one directly across the bridge on Route 2, but high northerly winds made that part of the lake unsafe to kayak. I headed south down the peninsulas southern tip andAlburgh Dunes State Park, which features one of the lakes largest natural sand swimming beaches.
Alburgh Dunes is for day use only and a single trail runs parallel to the beach, but the dunes themselves are fenced off to protect the delicate beach grasses and other stabilizing plants. There is no public drinking water supply.
The beach also was a great place to launch a kayak, as the area was somewhat protected from the northern winds. With Isle La Motte just to the west, winds coming from that direction could also be mitigated.
Given the potentially long outings on this massive lake, wind speed and direction must always be considered before setting out in a kayak or canoe. Conditions can change quickly.
Alburgh is also a bit of a geographical oddity for trivia buffs. A welcome sign identified it as being located on the 45thParallel. This geographic line was to have been the border between the U.S. and Canada, but a long-ago cartographic error placed the border about a mile north of the 45th in many places, which gave Alburgh several square miles of land that should have been in Canada rather than the U.S.
Rouses Point presented no nearby camping options and a hardscrabble downtown with some echoes of its tourist past, but with only one lodging accommodation a large motel with its tourist heyday long behind it, now occupied primarily by long-term residents. It proved comfortable and provided the chance to sort through coolers and dirty clothing to take to a local laundromat.
At the time, due to the pandemic, crossing the Canadian border required use of a mobile phone app to relay basic passport information and vaccination/health status to customs authorities prior to arrival at a border station. That app requirement has subsequently been discontinued.
Crossing the border put me along the western shoreline of the Richelieu River, a 77-mile tributary of the St. Lawrence. The trip north on Route 223 was along the flat broad plains of Quebec, passing through agricultural fields and little towns that led to the small city of Chambly, a favorite recreation spot for residents of Montreal about 30 miles away.
Water recreation centers on the Chambly Basin, formed by an enlargement of the Richelieu that creates a small lake extending from the foot of the rivers rapids. Kayaks, paddleboards, and recreational boats filled the basin as I joined in on a perfect summer day. The lakeshore at Chambly is all privately owned, so there were no places to take out for a break.
Later, I strolled along the shops and restaurant of the compact town and to Fort Chambly National Historic Site, an imposing stone structure with parts dating to the early 17thcentury French colonial period. Nearby was a lock for the historic Chambly Canal, which connects the river to the St. Lawrence andLake Champlain and ultimately, to New York City through the Champlain Canal starting in Whitehall and running to the Hudson River at Fort Edward.
After kayaking the basin and finding a small motel for the night, I again headed north, pitching my tent at a well-equipped private campground, Domaine Des Erables, located east of the river about an hours drive north in the village of St. Roch-De-Richelieu
Nearby, the town boat launch was home to a small cable ferry that takes cars back and forth across the river. The Richelieu remains flat and placid, with negligible current and periodic river traffic confined to occasional recreational boats. A gentle paddle from the launch at St. Roch-De-Richelieu led south to the historic Chambly Canal lock on the island of St. Ours National Historic Site. The lock was built between 1830-1833, and the lockkeepers house is now a small museum that describes the canals commercial heyday. Parks Canada also has placed six large rental tents on the island for campers equipped with electric heat and cooking supplies. These rentals a cross between a tent and a cedar cabin are a leisurely, comfortable way to experience the flow of the river and of the lock as boats pass through.
Now the beginning of August, my push was to reach the mouth of the Richlieu at the St. Lawrence port city of Sorel-Tracy, about 20 miles north. The area at the mouth is industrialized in this city of about 35,000 people, and the St. Lawrence is broad, powerful, and occupied by large ocean-going freighters, making it an imprudent place to kayak.
But only a 20-minute drive downriver, the atmosphere was completely different. There, the western edge of the Archipelago of Lake Saint Pierre is dotted with 103 islands and wetlands that are important habitat for migratory waterfowl. The area, including Lake Saint Pierre just to the east, was recognized as an ecologically important Biosphere Reserve by the United Nations in 2000.
A boat launch immediately across from the private campground where I had set up (Camping Chenal-du-Moine) offered a tantalizing glimpse into this sprawling maze of islands and channels, as well as a guarantee of being outside the main shipping channel and the massive freighters cruising through.
The launch was still several miles from the lake itself, a widening of the river about 20 miles long and up to nine miles wide. For those who want to tour the area, several private tour businesses are available.
During my paddle along the channel between the shoreline and Lle-du-Moine, I was joined by small recreational boats and saw many small seasonal cottages along both sides. The land was all privately owned, so there was no place to legally take out. But it was a quiet refuge close to the busy shipping lanes.
Sadly, I was behind my schedule, and so had to turn south the next day and make a run along the east bank of the Richelieu for the U.S. border, with a long drive taking me past sundown and thus, requiring a stay in a Vermont motel. That led to a detour Burlington, which also offers fantastic views of the Adirdondacks across the lake, and then, on to a campsite in a return visit to Button Bay State Park.
My two weeks were coming to an end, and I again crossed the Crown Point Bridge to return to the Washington County camp where I had started. I had added 700 additional miles on my odometer, and some great memories of two rivers and a beautiful lake region that could take several lifetimes to fully explore.
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Inside the subsea cable firm secretly helping American take on China – Reuters
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On Feb. 10 last year, the cable ship CS Dependable appeared off the coast of the island of Diego Garcia, an Indian Ocean atoll thats home to a discreet U.S. naval base.
Over the next month, the ships crew covertly laid an underwater fiber-optic cable to the military base, an operation code-named Big Wave, according to four people with direct knowledge of the mission, as well as a Reuters analysis of satellite imagery and ship tracking data.
The new super-fast internet link to Diego Garcia, which has not previously been reported, will boost U.S. military readiness in the Indian Ocean, a region where China has expanded its naval influence over the last decade.
The CS Dependable is owned by SubCom, a small-town New Jersey cable manufacturer thats playing an outsized role in a race between the United States and China to control advanced military and digital technologies that could decide which country emerges as the worlds preeminent superpower.
SubCom, a company born out of a U.S. Cold War project to spy on Soviet submarines, is living a double life.
Publicly, it is one of the worlds biggest developers of undersea fiber-optic cables for telecom firms and tech giants like Alphabets Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta Platforms.
Behind the scenes, SubCom is the exclusive undersea cable contractor to the U.S. military, laying a web of internet and surveillance cables across the ocean floor, according to the fourpeople with knowledge of the matter: two SubCom employees and two U.S. Navy staffers. The individuals asked not to be named because they were not authorized to discuss the operations.
This dual role has made SubCom increasingly valuable to Washington as global internet infrastructure from undersea cables to data centers and 5G mobile networks risks fracturing into two systems, one backed by the United States, the other controlled by China.
SubCom is owned by Cerberus Capital Management, a New York-based private equity firm that has invested in defense contractors and national security assets.Last year, Cerberus paid $300 million for a Philippine shipyard on a former U.S. Navy base close to the South China Sea, beating out Chinese competitors for control of a strategic site in a region where Beijing has been flexing its military muscle.
Cerberus is headed by Stephen Feinberg, a billionaire political donor whom former President Donald Trump drafted onto the Presidents Intelligence Advisory Board, which counsels the commander-in-chief on U.S. foreign intelligence matters.
SubCom, Cerberus and Feinberg did not respond to requests for comment.
Presented with Reuters findings, a spokesperson for the U.S. Navys Pacific Fleet confirmed the existence of a new high-speed undersea internet cable to Diego Garcia. It was the first official acknowledgement of that cable.
The resiliency, redundancy, and security of our communication infrastructure represents a top priority for U.S. Pacific Fleet, the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
The statement said the Navy could not discuss specifics for operational security reasons. The Navy did not respond to Reuters questions about SubCom or name the company in its statement.
SubComs journey from Cold War experiment to global cable constructor and now a shadowy player in the U.S.-China tech war is detailed in this story for the first time.
Reuters is revealing details of the Diego Garcia project and SubComs deepening ties with the Pentagon. The news agency is also the first to report on a confidential contract the company secured from tech giant Google to build the worlds largest private undersea internet network.
That partnership is the kind of America Inc project that President Joe Biden has been calling for in his drive to promote U.S. advanced technologies.
Google did not respond to requests for comment.
Undersea cables transmit 99% of all transcontinental internet traffic, including instant messenger chats, stock market transactions and military secrets. This underwater network has become one of the key weapons in the U.S.-China tech war, as detailed in a Reuters investigation published in March. Subsea cables are vulnerable to sabotage and espionage, and Beijing and Washington have accused each other of tapping cables to spy on data or carry out cyberattacks.
SubComs increasing importance to the United States can be split into two categories, one military and one economic, according to two subsea cable industry officials who have worked on U.S. government projects.
First, Washington needs SubCom to expand the Navys undersea cable network so that it can better coordinate military operations and enhance surveillance on Chinas expanding fleet of submarines and warships, the people said. Second, the Biden administration wants SubCom to build more commercial subsea internet cables controlled by U.S. companies, a strategy aimed at ensuring that America remains the primary custodian of the internet, according to the two industry officials.
SubCom operates six cable-laying ships: bespoke deep-sea vessels fitted with vast storage drums to hold sheaves of fiber-optic cable. The Navy has only one such ship the 40-year-old USNS Zeus a vessel so old that it is limited to carrying out repairs, according to Eckhard Bruckschen, director of the UK-based Undersea Cable Consultancy.
SubCom is indispensable to America if it wants to control subsea cables. Theyve got no one else, Bruckschentold Reuters.
There are only four major companies in the world that manufacture and lay subsea cables: Americas SubCom, Japans NEC Corporation, Frances Alcatel Submarine Networks and Chinas HMN Tech.
For sensitive U.S. projects, Washington only works with SubCom, according to five industry sources who have worked on projects with the cable company.
The U.S. Department of Defense and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.
Picking sides
Until a U.S. crackdown on Chinese tech companies ramped up five years ago, SubCom laid cables for telecom and tech companies worldwide, including the big state-owned Chinese carriers.
Not anymore. The cable firm now works almost exclusively for the U.S. military and big U.S. tech firms, two SubCom employees told Reuters.
SubComs pivot reflects a sea change underway in the internet infrastructure industry, which has long seen choosing sides in great-power politics as bad for business. But U.S. sanctions on Chinese tech companies and an increase in trade-protectionist policies under Biden and his predecessor Trump have forced American tech firms to work mainly with companies and countries viewed as friendly to the United States.
The U.S. Department of Justice in 2020 blocked Google, Meta and Amazon from building fiber-optic cables from the United States to Hong Kong due to concerns about Chinese spying.
Microsoft whose President Brad Smith said in 2017 that the tech sector needed to be a neutral digital Switzerland announced in May that it had discovered Chinese state-sponsored hackers targeting U.S. critical infrastructure, a rare example of a big tech firm calling out Beijing for espionage. Chinas Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at the time that the accusations were part of a U.S. disinformation campaign, describing America as the empire of hacking.
In December of last year, the Pentagon awarded $9 billion worth of Cloud computing contracts to Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Oracle, entrusting these companies to keep Americas most closely held secrets under digital lock and key.
Silicon Valley is waking up to the reality that it has to pick a side, said Jacob Helberg, former head of Googles news policy and a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a government agency.
Google did not respond to a request for comment. Amazon, Microsoft and Oracle declined to comment.
SubComs loyalty is especially important because it is the only major U.S. subsea cable company. Headquartered in the quiet borough of Eatontown, New Jersey, SubCom secured a $10 million-a-year contract in 2021 from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to run a two-vessel fleet to provide undersea cable security, according to one SubCom employee and one Navy staffer with knowledge of the deal. A 2020 DOT notice to prospective applicants said winners would be responsible for laying, maintaining and repairing subsea cables to support U.S. national security and economic interests, in partnership with the Department of Defense.
The SubCom ships CS Dependable and CS Decisive now make up the U.S. governments first Cable Security Fleet, the people said.
The DOT and SubCom did not respond to requests for comment.
Operation Big Wave
One of CS Dependables destinations was Diego Garcia, a horseshoe-shaped atoll which hosts U.S. aircraft carriers and submarines, and has an airfield capable of landing long-range bombers.
Located in the heart of the Indian Ocean, Diego Garcia is a British overseas territory. Since the 1970s, Britain has allowed the United States to operate a naval base there. The island is currently home to around 3,000 people, including Navy sailors, family members and support staff, two people who have worked on the atoll told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. Diego Garcia boasts shops, restaurants, bars and pristine beaches, the people said.
Prior to the laying of the new subsea cable, the island base accessed the internet via satellites, which are slower and less reliable than cables, the two people said.
The CS Dependables clandestine underwater operation on Diego Garcia was never mentioned publicly by participants in the business deal that made it happen. Rather, they carefully obscured the U.S. military component within a larger private-sector cable project, according to four subsea cable industry sources with knowledge of the arrangement.
In 2020, SubCom announced that it had been commissioned by an Australian tech mogul to lay a $300 million commercial internet cable from Australia to the Sultanate of Oman on the Arabian Peninsula, a route that traverses the Indian Ocean.
That project, known as the Oman Australia Cable, was spearheaded by SUBCO, a Brisbane-based subsea cable investment company owned by Australian entrepreneur Bevan Slattery.
The industry was skeptical about the commercial viability of the route, given it would mostly serve a small pool of Australian telecom firms that already had access to multiple cables running through Southeast Asia to the Middle East, five industry sources told Reuters.
The Secret Splice
SubCom announced in 2020 that it was building a commercial subsea internet cable from Australia to Oman. The $300 million project included a clandestine link to a U.S. Navy base on the remote Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, which was funded by the Pentagon.
Sources: TeleGeography; Natural Earth
What many of them didnt know was that the Pentagon had paid for around a third of the entire cable on the condition that it include a splice connecting its commercial trunk to Diego Garcia, two of the people with knowledge of the project told Reuters.
The U.S. Pacific Fleet, in its statement to Reuters, said SUBCOs Oman Australia Cable offered a unique opportunity to connect the remote island with an undersea fiber-optic internet cable.
The statement said the U.S. Pacific Fleet partnered with companies laying the Oman Australia Cable to extend a branch to Diego Garcia, but did not disclose how much it paid for the spur.
This partnership has increased the digital resiliency and security of our communication infrastructure in the Indo-Pacific, the statement said.
While the Navy had said nothing officially about the cable until now, sailors on Diego Garcia were tipped off last year. Captain Richard Payne, then-commander on Diego Garcia, mentioned the cable during a Feb. 9 guest appearance on the bases local radio station, 99.1 The Eagle, a recording of which was posted on the Navy radio stations Facebook page.
Payne, who was fielding questions submitted by listeners, volunteered that an unusual vessel could be sighted off the western shore of Diego Garcia.
We're going to have fiber optics here on the island very soon, Payne told the programs host, Alex Kerska or DJ Special K, during the segment in which he also addressed complaints about high beer prices on the atoll and called on island residents to attend a kickball tournament.
Starting today (or) tomorrow, we have the cable-laying ship that is out there off the coast now. Its a commercial company doing that Its a very interesting ship, Payne continued, without naming the company or the ship.
Payne, who now works in the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, did not respond to a request for comment.
The ship Payne was referring to was the CS Dependable, according to the SubCom and Navy sources with knowledge of the operation.
SubComs CS Reliance vessel laid the first half of the commercial cable from Perth, Australia, to the middle of the Indian Ocean. From there, the CS Dependable took over, running the splice to Diego Garcia and laying the rest of the main trunk up to Oman, the people said.
Reuters analyzed satellite images and ship tracking data on Eikon, the financial analysis platform owned by the London Stock Exchange Group. That information showed the CS Dependable operating around Diego Garcia in February and March of 2022, then sailing on to Oman.
The delicate operation was made possible by a decades-long friendship between three veterans of the subsea cable industry, according to two people with knowledge of the dealings.
Coordinating the Pentagons end was Catherine Creese, a former U.S. Coast Guard officer who is now Director of the U.S. Naval Seafloor Cable Protection Office, the unit that oversees the Navys subsea cables.
Prior to joining the Navy in 2006, Creese worked at SubCom for 11 years, a time when it was known as Tyco Telecommunications. There she worked closely alongside the man who is now SubComs CEO, David Coughlan, according to two former SubCom employees who worked with Coughlan and Creese.
Coughlan and Creese planned and executed the Diego Garcia operation, according to one current SubCom employee and one Navy staffer.
Creese and Coughlan did not respond to requests for comment. The U.S. Navy did not respond to questions about Creeses involvement.
Dreams come true
Selling the cable to investors, meanwhile, was the purview of Slattery, the Australian entrepreneur, who has made a fortune building and selling private undersea cables. In a conservative industry, the businessman stands out as a gregarious and outspoken character who is willing to take on risky projects, according to three industry sources who have worked with Slattery.
Slattery did not respond to requests for comment.
SubComs Coughlan helped Slattery pull off his first major cable deal in the late 2000s, setting him on course to become one of Australias wealthiest tech moguls, according to two industry sources with knowledge of the matter.
That project, a SubCom-built cable running between Brisbane and Guam, a U.S. Pacific island territory thats also home to a naval base, almost bankrupted Slattery, the businessman told the Australian Financial Review in a 2016 interview.
Thanks to sympathetic suppliers, Slattery got that cable, known as PIPE,over the line, according to the Financial Review article. Crucially, SubCom, the main supplier on the project, extended Slattery credit to get the cable finished, the two industry sources said.
Slattery sold the company that owned the PIPE cable for A$373 million ($248 million) in 2010, the first of a string of successful tech infrastructure bets. Slattery has a personal net worth of A$564 million ($375 million), according to a 2020 Rich List published by the Financial Review.
The entrepreneur pitched the Oman Australia Cable in public statements as an alternative to the traditional route between Australia and the Middle East that passes through Southeast Asia. The spur to Diego Garcia was never mentioned.
A blueprint for such a project already existed. Slatterys cable was essentially a revival and rerouting of a 2017 plan to build a cable between Australia and the Republic of Djibouti on the Horn of Africa, with a secret link to Diego Garcia funded by the Pentagon, according to a person directly involved in that deal. Djibouti is the site of Chinas first-ever overseas military base, which opened in 2017.
The earlier proposed cable known as the Australia West Express was never built because the U.S. company behind the project, GoTo Networks, couldnt secure the private investment needed to cover the portion not funded by the Pentagon, the person said.
SubComs cable ship tracked near remote U.S. Navy base
The CS Dependable spent weeks in the waters around Diego Garcia in February and March of 2022, ship tracking data shows. In this period, the ships crew laid a secret subsea fiber-optic internet cable to a U.S. Navy base on the atoll, according to SubCom and Navy sources.
Source: Refinitiv Eikon
John Mariano, who was the CEO of the now-defunct GoTo Networks, declined to comment. The U.S. Department of Defense did not respond to a request for comment. An official from the presidents office in Djibouti declined to comment.
Cables are typically owned by a consortium of telecom and tech companies that spread the cost and risk. Occasionally, entrepreneurs or private equity firms build a cable on spec with the aim of selling bandwidth to carriers and tech companies before flipping the cable for a profit.
Slattery is a master of such deals, two people who worked with him told Reuters. He used his experience and contacts to attract enough investors to supplement the Pentagon funding to get the Oman Australia Cable built, the two people said.
The 10,000-kilometer cable was officially opened by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in October 2022. It includes a splice to the Cocos Islands, an Australian territory which comprises a cluster of tiny islands between Sri Lanka and Australia. Australias military has been seeking parliamentary approval for funds to upgrade an airfield there and make other improvements aimed at strengthening its maritime surveillance capabilities in the region.
Slattery on Nov. 19, 2022, tweeted a group photo that included himself and Albanese, both with broad grins, celebrating the cable and the team that made dreams come true.
Albaneses office did not respond to a request for comment about the project, its funding or potential military uses. In an Oct. 22, 2022, tweet sent from his Twitter account, he lauded the cables speed, security and reliability, and boasted that it could stream over 65 million Netflix shows simultaneously.
The government of Oman did not respond to a request for comment.
Levers of power
SubComs role in the project marked a return to its Cold War roots.
The company was founded in 1955, according to its website, the year the first subsea transatlantic telephone cable system was laid between Scotland and Newfoundland. That cable was deployed by AT&Ts submarine cable unit, which would eventually become SubCom.
The true origins of AT&Ts subsea cable business go back five years earlier, when the company was commissioned by the U.S. Navy to build a network of undersea surveillance cables to listen for Soviet submarines, according to three former employees with knowledge of the matter.
The project was known as the Sound Surveillance System, or Project Caesar, according to a declassified document about the program available on the U.S. Navys website. The document does not mention AT&Ts involvement.
Once the Navy project was complete, AT&Ts submarine cable projectmorphedinto a commercial business, the former employees said.
AT&T did not respond to a request for comment.
In 1997, AT&T sold its cable-laying operation, including a fleet of ships, to Tyco International, a security company based in New Jersey. In 2018, Tyco sold the cable unit, by this time dubbed TE SubCom, for $325 million to Cerberus, the New York private equity firm.
SubCom doesnt make public many details about its business. The company has more than 1,300 employees and an annual revenue of $344 million, according to data on Eikon.
Last year, SubCom signed a master service agreement with Google, one of the worlds biggest investors in subsea internet cables, according to two people with knowledge of the deal.
That contract, which the people said is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, could help Google build the worlds largest-ever private data network, connecting Cloud data centers around the world with a web of SubCom-manufactured undersea cables.
Google did not respond to a request for comment.
More undersea cables and data centers in the hands of U.S. companies like Google and SubCom is a win for Washington as it seeks to keep Chinese firms away from the internet hardware that will underpin global economic and military progress for decades to come, said Kellee Wicker, director of the Science and Technology Innovation Program at the Wilson Center, a Washington-based think tank.
Cables are an enormous lever of power, Wicker said. If you cant control these networks directly, you want a company you can trust to control them.
Excerpt from:
Inside the subsea cable firm secretly helping American take on China - Reuters
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