AUDIO:

POSSIBLE TOPICS: VOTETEXAS.GOV—Voter Information; REGISTER TO VOTE; APPLY FOR MAIL-IN BALLOT; Last day to register is the end of April 6^th; 2023 Houston mayoral election; Top Republicans balk at Trump highlighting Jan. 6 rioters, calling it politically unwise; House Republican summarizes party’s response to rampant school shootings: “We’re not gonna fix it.” … said Rep. Tim Burchett; The Federalist Society Isn’t Quite Sure About Democracy Anymore; A REUTERS SPECIAL REPORT — U.S. and China wage war beneath the waves – over internet cables; Denmark invites Nord Stream operator to help salvage unidentified object; Inch by Bloody Inch in Ukraine War, Russia Is Closing In on Bakhmut (“I would alternate through what might be described as manic-depressive swings, joking around one moment and being on the verge of tears the next. This could happen multiple times per hour.”); More.

 Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio) is now on Wednesdays at 11AM (CT) on KPFT FM-HD2, Houston’s Community Station. You can also hear the show:

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1. Make sure you are registered to vote! VoteTexas.GOV – Texas Voter Information
   1. It’s time to snail-mail (no emails or faxes) in your application for mail-ballots, IF you qualify TEXAS SoS VOTE-BY-MAIL BALLOT APPLICATION (ALL TEXAS COUNTIES) HarrisVotes.com­ – Countywide Voting Centers, (Election Information Line (713) 755-6965), Harris County Clerk
   2. Harris County “Vote-By-Mail’ Application for 2022
      1. Fort bend County Elections/Voter Registration Machine takes you to the proper link
      2. GalvestonVotes.org (Galveston County, TX)
      3. Liberty County Elections (Liberty County, TX)
      4. Montgomery County (TX) Elections
      5. Brazoria County (TX) Clerk Election Information
      6. Waller County (TX) Elections
      7. Chambers County (TX) Elections
      8. For personalized, nonpartisan voter guides and information, Consider visiting Vote.ORG.   Ballotpedia.com and Texas League of Women Voters are also good places to get election info.
      9. If you are denied your right to vote any place at any time at any polling place for any reason, ask for (or demand) a provisional ballot rather than lose your vote.
      10. HarrisVotes.com – Countywide Voting Centers, HARRIS COUNTY – IDENTIFICATION REQUIRED FOR VOTING: Do not possess and cannot reasonably obtain one of these IDs?
          1. Fill out a declaration at the polls describing a reasonable impediment to obtaining it, and show a copy or original of one of the following supporting forms of ID:
          2. A government document that shows your name and an address, including your voter registration certificate
          3. Current utility bill
          4. Bank statement
          5. Government check
          6. Paycheck
          7. A certified domestic (from a U.S. state or territory) birth certificate or (b) a document confirming birth admissible in a court of law which establishes your identity (which may include a foreign birth document)
          8. You may vote early by-mail if:You are registered to vote and meet one of the following criteria:
             1. Away from the county of residence on Election Day and during the early voting period;
             2. Sick or disabled;
             3. 65 years of age or older on Election Day; or
             4. Confined in jail, but eligible to vote.
             5. Make sure you are registered:
             6. Ann Harris Bennett, Tax Assessor-Collector & Voter Registrar
             7. CHECK REGISTRATION STATUS HERE
             8. CLICK How to register to vote in Texas
             9. Outside Texas, try Vote.org.
2. BE REGISTERED TO VOTE, and if eligible, REMEMBER TO FILL OUT AND MAIL NEW MAIL-IN BALLOT APPLICATIONS FOR 2023.
   1. FYI: The next elections according to HarrisVotes.com are May 9^th. Last day to register is the end of April 6^th. There may or not be an election in your particular election precinct, so you may have to go to your local elections clerk or go to http://www.VOTETEXAS.GOV
   2. Just be registered and apply for your mail-in ballot if you may qualify.
   3. You can track your Mail Ballot Activity from our website with direct link provided here https://www.harrisvotes.com/Tracking
3. 2023 Houston mayoral election — From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
   1. MIKE: The Houston city elections are technically non-partisan, but we all know that’s baloney. Party affiliation matters in terms of one’s political philosophy, with the exceptions of actual independents or those who run on any party line that gives them an advantage.
   2. The current list of Houston mayoral candidates is as follows:
   3. Chris Hollins, member of the Houston Metro Board of Directors, former acting Harris County Clerk, and former vice chair of the Texas Democratic Party^[2][3]
   4. Amanda Edwards, former at-large city councilor and candidate for U.S. Senate in 2020^[4]
   5. Robert Gallegos, city councilor^[5]
   6. Gilbert Garcia, bond investor and former chair of the Houston Metro Board of Directors^[6]
   7. Ralph Garcia^[7]
   8. Naoufal Houjami, entertainment consultant and candidate for mayor in 2019^[7]
   9. Sheila Jackson Lee, U.S. Representative for Texas’s 18th congressional district ^[8]
   10. Lee Kaplan, attorney ^[9]
   11. Rickey Tezino, community activist^[7]
   12. Derrick Broze, investigative journalist, 2019 Mayoral Candidate, and activist ^[10]
   13. John Whitmire, state senator and brother-in-law of former mayor Kathy Whitmire ^[11]
   14. Robin Williams, police officer and S. Marine Corps veteran ^[12]
   15. MIKE: We’ll no doubt discuss this a little more as times goes on and as the leaders sort themselves out.
4. Top Republicans balk at Trump highlighting Jan. 6 rioters, calling it politically unwise; Some Republican senators said they don’t understand why Trump keeps relitigating the Capitol attack and those who were prosecuted for breaking the law. By Sahil Kapur and Scott Wong | NBCNEWS.COM | March 27, 2023, 5:04 PM CDT / Updated March 27, 2023, 5:53 PM CDT
   1. MIKE: This article gives a sample of how some Congressional Republicans feel about Trump’s Waco Rally. I thought that what was quoted was interesting.
   2. Top Senate Republicans broke with former President Donald Trump on Monday over his decision to feature video of Jan. 6 rioters at his weekend rally in Texas.
   3. Some disagreed with his judgment in playing a video that exalts those who took part in the attack on the Capitol and were arrested, rejecting the narrative in pro-Trump circles that the rioters were “peaceful” protesters. Other Republicans said it is an unwise political strategy for Trump to focus on the attempted insurrection as he seeks a comeback bid in 2024. …
   4. John Cornyn of Texas: “When it comes to running for president or any other office, people don’t want you to relitigate all your grievances in the past. They want to know what your vision for the future is. …”
   5. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a Trump ally and golfing partner: “January 6 was one of the worst days in American history. … “[I]f you’re trying to suggest that those who were involved in January the 6th are some kind of hero? No.” …
   6. Senate Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., referred to his past comments condemning the Jan. 6 violence and questioned Trump’s decision to keep focusing on that day. …
   7. Joni Ernst of Iowa, another member of GOP leadership, said she didn’t have a reaction to Trump, but added: “I’ve already said that Jan. 6 was a horrible thing.”
   8. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., pushed back on those who have downplayed Jan. 6. “I still maintain that anybody that breached the walls, came through windows and doors — some of them may have been caught up in the moment, most of them probably deserve to be accountable to the courts and the criminal justice system,” he told reporters Monday. …
   9. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., offered a partial defense of Trump, saying he doesn’t “want to see any violence,” but claiming there is a “multi-tiered system of justice here” in which Jan. 6 defendants are being treated more harshly.
   10. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., said Trump’s move could help fire up primary voters. … I can’t say it’s good or bad, but I’m sure he’s trying to get people fired up,” he said. “Everybody looks for an edge. Bottom line, it’s about winning.” …
   11. On the other side of the Capitol, several House Republicans said Trump’s use of the Jan. 6 riot footage was inappropriate.
   12. “I don’t approve. I don’t approve,” said moderate Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., a leader of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus.
   13. Another moderate, Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., said Trump’s actions demonstrated “a lack of judgment and the way to lose in 2024.”
   14. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said he didn’t see what happened at the Waco rally but explained why he’s ready to move on from Trump. …
   15. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said he didn’t see the rally and declined to comment on Trump’s move to highlight the Jan. 6 rioters. …
   16. ANDREW: There’s a temptation to view these comments as an indication that the Republican Party is splitting, and may not be able to unite enough to be as viable of a political force in 2024. While I would enjoy seeing that happen, I don’t think it’s quite that easy.
   17. ANDREW: I don’t think any of the Republicans quoted here as disapproving of Trump’s rhetoric really feel that way. I think they’re saying that that’s how they feel because they believe that appeals to moderate and undecided voters, and they’re going after that demographic for re-election. I think these comments are ultimately borne of opportunism, and if their voter base trends more towards supporting Trump, or the RNC threatens to withdraw its support for them, these Republicans will change their tunes real quick.
   18. MIKE: I just thought that it was interesting how many Republicans are still not willing to say publicly that they don’t endorse a candidate who incites violence against our government and other political enemies, and that they don’t endorse that kind of language. But of course, this is also the party that couldn’t find a single Republican senator to endorse a senate resolution condemning white supremacy..
5. House Republican summarizes party’s response to rampant school shootings: “We’re not gonna fix it.” … said Rep. Tim Burchett; By Gabriella Ferrigine, News Fellow | SALON.COM | Published March 28, 2023 2:32PM (EDT)
   1. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., insisted that there was nothing Congress could do in response to Monday’s school shooting at Nashville’s Covenant School, which marked the 131st mass shooting this year.
   2. Burchett, who represents Knoxville, told reporters on the steps of Capitol on Monday that Congress is powerless to affect the rise in mass shooting deaths.
   3. “We’re not gonna fix it,” he said. “I don’t see any role that we could do other than mess things up, honestly.”
   4. Burchett offered his solution to rising gun violence: “You’ve got to change people’s hearts.”
   5. “As a Christian, we talk about the church,” he added. “I’ve said this many times, I think we really need a revival in this country.”
   6. Burchett is a member of the uber-conservative Republican Study Committee, which maintains close ties with the National Rifle Association. …
   7. Republican leaders in Congress have similarly rejected the idea of pursuing gun safety legislation. …
   8. MIKE: The way this story is written, it’s as much an opinion piece as a news story, but I wanted to quote Rep. Burchett. As Shakespeare said, “The evil that men do lives after them.”
   9. ANDREW: Mike and I have different ideas of the best way to stop gun violence, but I think we both agree that Republicans have the power to help, they just don’t care.
6. MIKE: Most of you have heard of the Federalist Society by name and perhaps reputation, but I thought this article was interesting because it talked a bit about them: The Federalist Society Isn’t Quite Sure About Democracy Anymore; After recent Supreme Court wins, the society’s youth arm debates the next stage for the conservative legal movement. By Ian Ward | politico.com | 03/17/2023 04:30 AM EDT, Updated: 03/17/2023 09:11 AM EDT. Ian Ward is a contributing writer for POLITICO Magazine.
   1. [T]he Federalist Society’s National Student Symposium — an annual gathering of conservative and libertarian law students hosted by the conservative legal behemoth [— is built] around a series of panel discussions with prominent legal scholars, lawyers, and federal judges, the annual gathering offers up-and-coming conservative lawyers a prized opportunity to rub elbows with the leading lights of the conservative legal movement. …
   2. [T]he symposium … is part academic conference, part high-powered networking event, and part extended cocktail …
   3. This year’s gathering was even more important than most. As the first student symposium since the Supreme Court handed conservatives a historic package of victories on gun rights, religious freedom, environmental deregulation, and, of course, abortion, the weekend offered a window into the shifting priorities and preoccupations of the youngest and most elite members of the conservative legal movement, at a time when the future of the movement as a whole is quietly unsettled. 
   4. The first major clue … came from the symposium’s theme, which the organizers had designated as “Law and Democracy.” As the programming unfolded over the next day and a half, it became alarmingly clear that, even among the buttoned-up young members of the Federalist Society — an organization not known for its political transgressiveness — the relationship between those two principles [MIKE: which I infer from the article are the principles of Conservatism and Libertarianism] is far from settled. From radical new theories about election law to outlandish-seeming calls for a “national divorce” the symposium-goers were grappling with ideas that raised fundamental questions about American democracy — what it means, what it entails, and what, if anything, the conservative legal movement has to say about its apparent decline. …
   5. To those who have followed the Federalist Society closely since its triumphs at the Supreme Court last year, the symposium’s focus on law and democracy may hardly seem incidental. Since its founding in 1982, the Federalist Society has championed “judicial restraint,” the notion that judges should limit their roles to interpreting the law as written, leaving the actual business of lawmaking to democratically elected legislatures. 
   6. That approach made sense for conservatives when they still saw the federal judiciary as a liberal force dragging the country to the left. But now that conservatives have secured a solid majority on the Supreme Court — and voters in several red states have soundly rejected hard-line positions on abortion — a spirited debate is underway within the Federalist Society about the wisdom of deferring to democratic majorities as a matter of principle.
   7. “From our very beginning, there has been an aspect of judicial restraint, and there has been an aspect that it’s judges’ jobs to interpret the Constitution, that whatever it says, that’s what they should do — and those two can sometimes be in tension,” said Eugene Meyer, the president and CEO of the Federalist Society …
   8. [Josh Blackman, a professor at the South Texas College of Law and a fixture of the Federalist Society speaking circuit,] noted that that tension was neatly captured in two of the headline-making decisions that went conservatives’ way in the last Supreme Court term. In the Dobbs ruling, the conservative majority returned the abortion question to state legislatures, limiting federal judges’ role in determining the extent of reproductive rights. Meanwhile, in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen —  which struck down a New York law that set the requirements for individuals to receive a concealed carry permit for handguns — the Court trumped the decision of a state legislature in favor of conservatives’ preferred reading of the Second Amendment. 
   9. But Blackman’s assessment of the direction of the intellectual current within the Federalist Society was even more candid than Meyer’s.
   10. “The norm that judges be restrained and moderate — that ship has sailed,” he said. …
   11.  The symposium is hosted by a different law school every year, but there was a tidy irony to the fact that this year’s gathering landed in Texas, which has in recent years seen an influx of conservative transplants seeking refuge from what they see as the insanity and incipient authoritarianism of Blue America.
   12. “Democracy is what philosophers call an ‘essentially contested concept,’” said Daniel Lowenstein, a professor of law emeritus at UCLA and an expert in election law, during a panel on Friday evening. “Differences that seem on their surface to concern the meaning of the word ‘democracy’,” he added, are actually struggles to advance particular and controversial political ideas.”
   13. What democracy does not mean, Lowenstein argued, was “plebisci’tary democracy,” or simple rule by democratic majorities. Citing the Federalist Papers — the namesake of the Federalist Society — Lowenstein suggested that governance based on simple mathematical majorities would enable “tyrannical domination of the minority by the majority.” 
   14. “The assumption that only plebiscitary forms [of government] are truly democratic is fallacious, and should be openly and directly contested by those supporting non-plebiscitary positions,” he added. 
   15. Behind [the reporter], somebody whispered, “We’re a republic, not a democracy” — a tongue-in-cheek slogan that some conservatives have adopted as a way to slyly signal their approval of minority rule.
   16. Later on in the same panel, Joel Alicea, a law professor at the Catholic University of America, diagnosed the apparent threats facing American democracy today — political violence, abuses of governmental power, and attempted election subversion, to name a few — as symptoms of a deeper malaise. 
   17. “At this point in our society,[” he said, “] we can’t even agree whether somebody is a man or a woman, which suggests such a deep level of moral disagreement — and even disagreement about basic notions of reality — that to say that society can form an overlapping consensus is hopelessly naïve.” Faced with such fundamental disagreements, Alicea said that citizens have to choose between two approaches: coercion [—i.e.,] suppressing disagreements by means of force and intimidation , or conversion [— i.e.,] the slow and steady work of persuading people who disagree with you to come around to your point of view.  Alicea advised the attendees to embrace conversion rather than coercion, but in the question-and-answer session after the panel, an audience member proposed a third option: a full-scale national divorce, of the sort recently proposed by Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. On the dais, the panelists squirmed at the invocation of such pedestrian political ideas … But the question seemed to linger in the room: If the disagreements over democratic first principles are as serious as Alicea had suggested, then was the idea of a wholesale political rupture really so radical? 
   18. The possibility of dramatic changes to America’s democratic order also hung over a panel on election law, where Richard Pildes, a professor of constitutional law at New York University, briefed the audience on Moore v. Harper, a case that is currently awaiting judgment from the Supreme Court. The case, which arose from a challenge to North Carolina’s redistricting plan, is widely viewed by legal scholars as a referendum on the controversial independent state legislature theory, which posits that state legislatures should be allowed to exert broad control over the execution of federal elections. 
   19. From the stage, Pildes — who testified about the dangers of the theory before the House last year —  seemed confident that the justices were not poised to endorse the theory in its most radical form. But even as the several panelists acknowledged the disruptive nature of the theory, none of them seemed eager to acknowledge that the four members of the Court who have flirted with the idea — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — all maintain close ties to the Federalist Society. 
   20. That omission hinted at a deeper dilemma facing the Federalist Society. Despite accusations from liberals that the society is merely the eggheaded puppet of the Republican Party, many of the society’s members genuinely view themselves as independent-minded intellectuals, committed to the principles of individual freedom, judicial restraint and the rule of law. For the past two decades, the society’s members have pointed to those principles to justify the conservative movement’s efforts to weaken democratic norms and institutions, without having to go so far as to explicitly argue that a minority of Americans should be allowed to impose their will on the whole country. 
   21. But now, as the American right lurches toward a more explicitly anti-democratic position,  the society’s members are face to face with a troubling possibility: that most conservatives couldn’t care less about their high-minded principles, and, even worse, that many of their allies view their attachment to those principles as a quaint — and slightly embarrassing — relic of the bygone era when conservatives still had to be coy about what they actually believed. And whether or not those criticisms are true, there was a definite sense of cognitive dissonance at the conference …
   22. The Federalist Society was founded by law students, and advancing the careers of ambitious, right-leaning lawyers has remained a major element of its work. That work begins on law school campuses, where local chapters host speakers and events, and it extends all the way to Washington, where the Federalist Society has become the GOP’s go-to clearinghouse for major judicial appointments. Although much of the national media attention has focused on the organization’s role in supporting Republican Supreme Court nominations, its presence on law school campuses has also been a source of controversy, especially since the Dobbs  …
   23. In recent years, however, the Federalist Society has come under fire not only from its traditional opponents on the left, but also from some erstwhile allies on the right. According to these conservative critics, the Federalist Society has excelled at training … young lawyers to fill the ranks of the federal judiciary, but it has been less successful at inspiring those same [lawyers to man] the front lines of an all-out war on the American political establishment. …
   24. [T]here was a palpable sense that many young attendees were hungering for some juicer political red meat.
   25. That hunger is partly a function of the iconoclastic energies that Trump introduced into the American right, and partly a function of generational divides within the conservative legal movement itself.
   26. “I think the older generations had been beaten so many times that they felt sort of defeated,” Blackman, who is in his thirties, told me. “They lost Roe, they lost Casey and they weren’t so eager to overrule those decisions, so it was largely the younger generation — who didn’t have those sort of battle scars — who were pushing hard for the court to overrule Dobbs.” …
   27. [Gov. Greg Abbott, in his speech,] leaned into the conservative culture war rhetoric, telling the audience that he was on “a recruiting mission” to enlist young conservative lawyers in the fight against “the social justice warriors and the anti-constitutionalists” who are seeking to subvert the rule of law and undermine America’s constitutional order. 
   28. “Those who believe in the rule of law are outnumbered…but I believe we are still winning, because we are on the side of the righteousness,” Abbott thundered. It wasn’t entirely clear what he meant by “winning,” but the audience didn’t seem to mind.
   29. Abbott’s speech went on in more or less the same fashion for the next half-hour, bouncing between punchy anecdotes from his legal career and perfunctory exhortations to defend the country from tyrannical social justice warriors. The audience applauded and laughed … and the whole room leapt to its feet as Abbott’s remarks drew to a close. …
   30. ANDREW: To me, the point of the article is that the Federalist Society is really still about the same ideology of controlling the masses as the rest of the Republican Party. Joel Alicea demonstrates that they still use hatred to divide the people into groups susceptible to their lies about building a hierarchy with YOU at the top. They still manhandle and misinterpret the limited democratic methods we have in this country to make sweeping, unpopular changes for their own benefit.  And ultimately, as Governor Abbott so kindly showed, they still cannot justify why they should be the ones to rule, so they distract and deflect by siccing their followers on made-up scapegoats (and even real people).
   31. ANDREW: The only difference is they come from a time where the protections for the masses and democracy in the US, while still insufficient, were stronger than they are now. The Federalist Society, and the Republican Party at the time, couldn’t be mask-off about their autocratic ambitions. But Ronald Reagan paved the way for decades of destruction, loosening the limits on autocracy. The new generation that grew up in that world– and that the Federalist Society helped give rise to– now sees the Society as an obsolete obstacle. They’re reaping what they’ve sown for all the rest of us; a promise of life at the top that will never come true. I don’t feel particularly sorry for them.
   32. ANDREW: But. Some of them will see this coming. They have realized that their whole ideology is a death spiral, and they want an out. I have an offer for them… on the blog at com.
       Here’s my offer to disillusioned Republicans: reject the death cult’s rhetoric about socialism. Read some introductory pamphlets from various kinds of socialists, Marxists, anarchists, etc. See if anything speaks to you. If so, you can leave the spiral and join one of many tides that lifts all boats (I’ve met folks who have done it). If not, at least you know a bit more about the world.
       I’m sure Mike will have his own offer, and I welcome him to make it. But I think I speak for us both when I say: there is a better way.
   33. MIKE: I found Blackman’s comment that, “I think the older generations had been beaten so many times that they felt sort of defeated … [T]he younger generation … didn’t have those sort of battle scars,” sort of ironic. I’ve been saying the same thing about the Democratic Party for years now, and pointing to the changing of the guard evidenced by the younger, more progressive Democrats who come into government without the memory and experience of older Democrats who had been beaten up by Republicans since the Vietnam War. Those older Democrats felt impelled to move further Right in order to compete. Younger Democrats feel no such urge.
   34. MIKE: It’s been obvious for a couple of decades now, especially in hindsight, that the Republicans have been planning to rule as a minority party for quite a while now. At least 25 years ago, I was comparing them to Mexico’s PRI — the Institutional Revolutionary Party. The PRI took power in 1929 and held it as a virtual monopoly until 2000. They’re still probably the dominant party in Mexico. I suspect that Republicans, consciously or unconsciously, think of them as role models.
7. A REUTERS SPECIAL REPORT — U.S. and China wage war beneath the waves – over internet cables. Subsea cables, which carry the world’s data, are now central to the U.S.-China tech war. Washington, fearful of Beijing’s spies, has thwarted Chinese projects abroad and choked Big Tech’s cable routes to Hong Kong, Reuters has learned. By JOE BROCK | REUTERS.COM | Filed March 24, 2023, 11 a.m. GMT
   1. It started out as strictly business: a huge private contract for one of the world’s most advanced undersea fiber-optic cables. It became a trophy in a growing proxy war between the United States and China over technologies that could determine who achieves economic and military dominance for decades to come.
   2. In February, American subsea cable company SubCom LLC began laying a $600-million cable to transport data from Asia to Europe, via Africa and the Middle East, at super-fast speeds over 12,000 miles of fiber running along the seafloor.
   3. That cable is known as South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 6, or SeaMeWe-6 for short. It will connect a dozen countries as it snakes its way from Singapore to France, crossing three seas and the Indian Ocean on the way. It is slated to be finished in 2025.
   4. It was a project that slipped through China’s fingers.
   5. A Chinese company that has quickly emerged as a force in the subsea cable-building industry – HMN Technologies Co Ltd – was on the brink of snagging that contract three years ago. … Three of China’s state-owned carriers … had committed funding as members of the consortium, which also included U.S.-based Microsoft Corp and French telecom firm Orange SA, according to six people involved in the deal.
   6. HMN Tech … was selected in early 2020 to manufacture and lay the cable, the people said, due in part to hefty subsidies from Beijing that lowered the cost. HMN Tech’s bid of $500 million was roughly a third cheaper than the initial proposal submitted to the cable consortium by New Jersey-based SubCom, the people said.
   7. The Singapore-to-France cable would have been HMN Tech’s biggest such project to date, cementing it as the world’s fastest-rising subsea cable builder, and extending the global reach of the three Chinese telecom firms that had intended to invest in it.
   8. But the U.S. government, concerned about the potential for Chinese spying on these sensitive communications cables, ran a successful campaign to flip the contract to SubCom through incentives and pressure on consortium members.
   9. Reuters has detailed that effort here for the first time. It’s one of at least six private undersea cable deals in the Asia-Pacific region over the past four years where the U.S. government either intervened to keep HMN Tech from winning that business, or forced the rerouting or abandonment of cables that would have directly linked U.S. and Chinese territories. The story of those interventions by Washington hasn’t been previously reported. …
   10. In a statement last year about infrastructure projects, the White House briefly noted that the U.S. government helped SubCom to win the Singapore-to-France cable contract, without giving details.  …
   11. Undersea cables are central to U.S.-China technology competition.
   12. Across the globe, there are more than 400 cables running along the seafloor, carrying over 95% of all international internet traffic, according to TeleGeography, a Washington-based telecommunications research firm. These data conduits, which transmit everything from emails and banking transactions to military secrets, are vulnerable to sabotage attacks and espionage, a U.S. government official and two security analysts told Reuters.
   13. The potential for undersea cables to be drawn into a conflict between China and self-ruled Taiwan was thrown into sharp relief last month. Two communications cables were cut that connected Taiwan with its Matsu islands, which sit close to the Chinese coast. The islands’ 14,000 residents were disconnected from the internet. …
   14. Eavesdropping is a worry too. Spy agencies can readily tap into cables landing on their territory. …
   15. Two of the projects upended by the U.S. government involved cables that had already been manufactured and laid thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean. …
   16. SubCom’s cable coup is part of a wider effort in Washington aimed at reining in China as Beijing strives to become the world’s dominant producer of advanced technologies, be it submarines, semiconductor chips, artificial intelligence or drones. China is bulking up its military arsenal with sophisticated armaments. And Beijing has become increasingly assertive about countering U.S. influence worldwide through trade, weapons and infrastructure deals that are drawing wide swaths of the globe into its orbit.
   17. The U.S. cable effort has been anchored by a three-year-old interagency task force informally known as Team Telecom.
   18. To oust the Chinese builder from the Singapore-to-France cable, the United States proffered sweeteners – and warnings – to the project’s investors.
   19. On the sweetener side, the U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) told Reuters it offered training grants valued at a total of $3.8 million to five telecom companies in countries on the cable’s route in return for them choosing SubCom as the supplier. …
   20. Meanwhile, American diplomats cautioned participating foreign telecom carriers that Washington planned to impose crippling sanctions on HMN Tech, a development that could put their investment in the cable project at risk. The U.S. Commerce Department made good on that threat in December 2021, citing HMN Tech’s intention to acquire American technology to help modernize China’s People’s Liberation Army. …
   21. Though the cable won’t come ashore in Chinese territory, the U.S. government believed HMN Tech could insert remote surveillance equipment inside the cable, the official said without providing evidence. …
   22. Two months later, in February 2022, SubCom announced that the cable consortium had awarded it the contract to build the SeaMeWe-6 cable. China Telecom and China Mobile, which were due to own a combined 20% of the cable, pulled out because the Chinese government wouldn’t approve their involvement in the project with SubCom as the cable contractor, three people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. China Unicom remained. …
   23. U.S.-China relations are at the lowest they’ve been in decades. …
   24. President Joe Biden’s policies are increasingly isolating China’s high-tech sector with the aim of bringing some technology manufacturing back to America while keeping cutting-edge U.S. innovation out of Chinese hands. …
   25. Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, speaking in Beijing this month, said the two superpowers are destined for “conflict and confrontation” unless Washington abandons its policy of “containment and suppression” towards China.
   26. Three companies have dominated the construction and laying of fiber-optic subsea cables for decades: America’s SubCom, Japan’s NEC Corporation and France’s Alcatel Submarine Networks, Inc.
   27. But a seismic shift occurred in 2008 when Huawei Marine Networks Co Ltd entered the fray. …
   28. Fast-forward 15 years and the firm, now known as HMN Tech, has become the world’s fastest-growing manufacturer and layer of subsea cables, according to TeleGeography data.
   29. But the company’s short history has been shaped by deteriorating U.S.-China relations.
   30. In 2019, Huawei Technologies came under fire from the administration of then-U.S. President Donald Trump. The Commerce Department banned Huawei and 70 affiliates from buying parts and components from U.S. companies without government approval.
   31. That move was part of a global campaign by Washington and its allies to stop Huawei Technologies from building fifth-generation, or 5G, communications networks around the world due to concerns that host nations would be vulnerable to Chinese eavesdropping or cyberattacks, the details of which were revealed in a previous Reuters investigation.
   32. Huawei Technologies said at the time that it was a private company that is not controlled by the Chinese government.
   33. HMN Tech expanded its ambitions with the PEACE cable, which came online last year and connects Asia, Africa and Europe. The firm was poised to make another great leap with the Singapore-to-France project before SubCom snatched it away.
   34. MIKE: The story goes on for several more pages, starting with a subtitle “Backroom Brawl”, that has more explicit details of what is alleged to have happened behind the scenes. It is a classic story of soft power in the Theodore Roosevelt vein: “walk softly, but carry a big stick.” The US used promises of aid and training in various countries transited by the cable. The metaphorical stick was a warning that the US was going to impose sanctions on China’s HMN, which it did in 2021. It’s a story worth reading in full, and the link to the whole story is at ThinkwingRadio.com.
   35. MIKE: I suppose that what’s described here can be viewed differently depending on whose side you may be on or what your political philosophy might be. I’m sure that in China, it’s mostly viewed exactly the same, but in reverse. But this is part of an international tug-of-war that involves current and future national security, national industrial capacity and wealth, and ultimately what country or group of countries will determine international rules of trade, transit, recognition of national borders — perhaps literally, war and peace, and life and death — for at least decades to come. Our lives and our children’s lives will be determined by the outcomes.
   36. ANDREW: That’s what worries me. I think nations offering incentives for their companies to be picked for projects like this is permissible, even agreeable, if those incentives aren’t too hard on workers at home. In negotiating, that’s called a “carrot”. But the “stick” (or bludgeon) that the US chose to pair it with is what I object to.
   37. ANDREW: Slapping sanctions on a company in a foreign country so they can’t compete with a company in your country is not a fair trading practice. It would be like if we here at KPFT paid every cable company in Houston to block KTRH’s Internet access so they couldn’t read any news. That would be extremely underhanded, and they’d probably sue us, or at least complain to the FCC.
   38. ANDREW: This is a little different, because no regulator can stop nations from undermining each others’ trade. But just because a country CAN do something, doesn’t mean it SHOULD, whether for the sake of its own interests, its own soul, or the wellbeing of everyone in the world. The US using sanctions to pressure an international trade deal justifies other nations doing the same thing to the US. And as this happens more and more, it will increase tensions between the relevant countries more and more, making the global political situation less and less stable. Which makes us all less and less safe.
   39. ANDREW: I’ll fall back on my stump speech: geopolitics is not a game, and it cannot be won. Trying to win only increases resentment, tension, and misunderstanding. Those aren’t things we can afford to have spread when a handful of people can swiftly launch weapons that would wipe out all life on Earth. Cooperation and FRIENDLY competition are the only things that can truly make our world safer.
   40. MIKE: A point of clarification here is that companies can give incentives, but can’t skirt too close to the definition of bribery. All international Chinese companies are essentially arms of the Chinese government, and government subsidies in the name of competition is something many countries are taking a harder line against, even among allies. Also, the US is taking the line that this is a national security matter. Knowing how good the Chinese government is at spying on its own citizens with apps like WeChat, I consider this reasonable.
8. Denmark invites Nord Stream operator to help salvage unidentified object; By Jacob Gronholt-pedersen | REUTERS.COM | March 24, 2023, 7:07 AM CDT, Last Updated 3 days ago
   1. Denmark on Thursday invited the Russian-controlled operator of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to help salvage an unidentified object found close to the only remaining intact gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea[,adding it was awaiting a response from the operator.]
   2. Three explosions last September on the Nord Stream pipelines built to deliver Russian gas to Germany have become another flashpoint in a standoff between the West and Russia set off by its invasion of Ukraine.
   3. The blasts occurred in the exclusive economic zones of Sweden and Denmark. Both countries say the explosions were deliberate, but have yet to determine who was responsible.
   4. Last week, Danish authorities said a tubular object, protruding around 40 cm (16 inches) from the seabed and 10 cm in diameter, had been found during an inspection of the last remaining intact pipeline by Swiss-based operator Nord Stream 2 AG.
   5. “With a view to further clarifying the nature of the object, Danish authorities have decided to salvage the object with assistance from the Danish Defence,” the country’s Energy Agency said in a statement on Thursday. …
   6. The pipeline operator is controlled by Russian state-owned gas company Gazprom (GAZP.MM).
   7. Authorities have assessed that “the object does not pose any immediate safety risk,” the agency said.
   8. Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that a ship rented by Gazprom had found an antenna-like object about 30 km (19 miles) from the explosion sites. It was not clear if he referred to the same object that Danish authorities will attempt to salvage.
   9. The last intact pipeline has remained idle as Europe has cut most energy ties with Russia. The pipeline still contains gas, but the operator said last year it had lowered its pressure as a precaution.
   10. ANDREW: Another exciting chapter in the Nord Stream whodunnit! It will be interesting to see if they find anything of note here, and if so, how the reactions and narratives about this event from the politicians, press, and public around the world may change. As they used to say on TV, don’t touch that dial!
   11. MIKE: Yes, inquiring minds want to know, as they used to say. This is another story that could end up being a compelling movie. Equally compelling might be which country it gets made in!
9. Inch by Bloody Inch in Ukraine War, Russia Is Closing In on Bakhmut; Sending unarmed “diggers” into the front lines and near certain death, Russian troops are making slow but inexorable progress. By Carlotta Gall | NYTIMES.COM | March 19, 2023Top of Form
   1. [A war veteran, Yevhen Dykyi, interviewed on a regional Ukrainian television channel, First Western,] quoted another of his friends who was fighting in Bakhmut: “We are tired not so much from the fights, but from the emotional swings. One minute we are in the mood that ‘All of us will die heroically now and there’s no way out.’ Another minute we’re in the mood, ‘Now we will break them, we’ll push them away.’ And these moods change several times a day.”
   2. MIKE: This is an interesting story in its own right, but I actually understood this viscerally from a personal experience of my own. I’m not actually comparing myself to a war veteran, but stay with me here.
   3. MIKE: During my divorce, I felt abused by the family court system. It broke me financially and emotionally. By the middle of the second year, I was experiencing mood swings exactly as described here. I would alternate through what might be described as manic-depressive swings, joking around one moment and being on the verge of tears the next. This could happen multiple times per hour. When I say that it was starting to drive me crazy, I mean it literally.
   4. MIKE: I called my doctor at the time on a Friday afternoon and begged him for some kind of medication. I described what I was experiencing as being like a pH buffer. Buffers keep a chemical’s pH stable, until they don’t. After that, adding alkalines of acids will swing the pH around wildly. I felt like that had happened to my neurochemistry; that I no longer had any resistance to mood swings. My doctor said that was actually a pretty good analogy.
   5. MIKE: The reason I’m sharing my story is for anyone listening who might be experiencing so much stress in their life for so long, that their brain literally can’t “buffer” itself against that stress anymore. Just know that you’re probably not actually going crazy. That in a way, you’re actually being used up, and you can get help.
   6. ANDREW: I can’t say I’ve been through anything as serious as either the experiences of these soldiers or your own experiences, Mike, but I think I’ve felt the same basic thing. Waiting on a tense situation often means rapidly feeling hope and despair and back again, and that is at best exhausting and at worst unbearable. I think most people have felt that at some point in their lives, but maybe not realized how serious it can get.

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