Record 84 candidates on a near metre-long ballot in upcoming Toronto byelection

CBC
Fri, 14 June 2024 

Voters in the riding of Toronto-St. Paul's head to the polls on June 24. (Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press - image credit)


When voters in Toronto-St. Paul's go to the polls later this month, they might be wishing the ballot had a search function.

A record 84 people have put their names forward as candidates for the June 24 byelection, making it the longest ballot ever in a federal election.

Dozens of independent candidates have entered the race as part of an organized protest against Canada's first-past-the-post voting system.


"We need to highlight the fact that our voting system is a joke and it's producing results that are completely inaccurate and distorted," said Glen MacDonald, a candidate in Toronto-St. Paul's and a volunteer with the group Longest Ballot Committee.

MacDonald pointed to the last two elections, which the Liberals won despite losing the popular vote.

The Longest Ballot Committee has encouraged candidates to put their names forward in protest in two previous byelections — in the Ontario riding of Mississauga-Lakeshore in 2022 and last year in Winnipeg South Centre, which previously held the record for most candidates. For Toronto-St. Paul's, the group has roughly doubled the number of candidates on the ballot; the previous two campaigns had 40 and 48 candidates respectively.

Julie St-Amand, who has put her name on the ballot for all three of those byelections, said advocacy campaigns in the past haven't been effective and she hopes the high number of candidates is drawing attention to the electoral reform debate.

"By just getting more people aware and talking about it, we're hoping it just spreads like wildfire," she said.

Elections Canada has had to make a number of temporary changes to the Elections Act in order to accommodate the oversized ballots. (The law allows the head of Elections Canada to make short-term changes in the case of "an emergency, an unusual or unforeseen circumstance.")


The ballot for the Tronto-St.Paul's byelection — the longest in federal election history — will be almost a metre long, according to Elections Canada.

The ballot for the Toronto-St.Paul's byelection — the longest in federal election history — will be almost a metre long says Elections Canada. (Elections Canada)

The ballot will have two columns of candidates listed side-by-side, instead of the traditional single column. In addition, the circles where voters mark their preference will be listed on the right and left margins of the ballot. (The Elections Act states the circles should always be listed to the right of a candidate's name.)

Elections Canada says the ballot is 30 centimetres wide and 90 centimetres long.

A typical ballot box can contain 1,000 ballots. Elections Canada expects only 100 will fit in each ballot box on election night in Toronto St. Paul's.

Trudeau promised electoral reform in 2015

Under Canada's current voting system, a candidate can win a riding by simply winning the most votes, even if they fail to win 50 per cent support.

Both St-Amand and MacDonald said they would prefer some kind of proportional electoral system where the seats in the House of Commons reflect a party's national vote share.

During his first campaign as Liberal leader, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to make the 2015 election the last under the first-past-the-post voting system.

But once in government, Trudeau and the Liberals slowly backed away from that promise.

MacDonald said he was "appalled" by that decision.

"It added to a level of cynicism that a lot of people have with regards to politics and with regards to voting. Politicians promise one thing and as soon as they get into office they decide, 'Well, we didn't really mean that,'" he said.

But MacDonald pointed out that the Liberals aren't the only party that has abandoned the idea of electoral reform.

"It's a problem that we've been suffering through on both sides of the political spectrum," he said.

The NDP has long advocated for electoral reform. But no NDP provincial government has made a change to their jurisdiction's voting system.

Even Conservative Stephen Harper flirted with the idea of electoral reform before he became prime minister.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper answers a question during Question Period in the House of Commons in Ottawa on Tuesday, June 2, 2015. Prior to entering politics, former prime minister Stephen Harper suggested that right-centre parties should be pushing for electoral reform. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

In a 13-page paper he co-authored in 1997, Harper decried the split in the conservative vote between the Progressive Conservatives and Reform Party that he blamed for keeping the Liberals in government at the time.

"The two parties could begin by agreeing to advocate electoral reform through the run-off, preferential ballot, or mixed-member-proportional system, which would be in the interest of both parties," Harper and co-author Tom Flanagan wrote.

But Harper didn't push for a new voting system when he took the helm of the modern Conservative Party — which amalgamated the two parties he previously suggested should consider electoral reform — and eventually formed government.

"Once you win under first-past-the-post, why would you get rid of it and risk not winning again under any other type of structure?" St-Amand said.

Her comments echo a passage from Harper and Flanagan's 1997 paper.

"It is seldom in the short-term interest of the party in power to carry out electoral reform; by definition, the system worked admirably for those now in power and changing the system might benefit the opponents next time," the two wrote.

MacDonald said he hopes the massive ballot in Toronto St-Paul's draws attention to his concerns about the current voting system. He said he would be willing to put his name down on a ballot again.

"If we do decide to do another one of these longest ballots, I would certainly put my name forward and I would support any initiative that raises the issue of electoral reform," he said.


Advanced voting opens in Toronto-St. Paul's federal byelection

CBC
Fri, 14 June 2024 


Advanced voting opens Friday in the Toronto-St. Paul's federal byelection. (Peter Power/The Canadian Press - image credit)


Advanced voting has opened for a federal byelection in the Toronto-St. Paul's riding, a Liberal stronghold that could be up for grabs as the party struggles in the polls.

The Liberals have held the seat since 1997, represented by former cabinet minister Carolyn Bennet, who resigned her seat in January to become Canada's ambassador to Denmark.

Bennett won over half the vote in the 2021 federal election, but the polls suggest things will be much tighter this time around.

Polling expert Philippe Fournier of 338Canada told CBC's Power & Politics last week that the riding is a "toss-up." He says polling data suggests the Liberals are still expected to win, but only by a margin of four to eight points.

The Liberals have won all 25 Toronto ridings in the last three general elections.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and over a dozen cabinet ministers were campaigning in the riding this week on behalf of their new Liberal candidate, Leslie Church, a former political staffer.

The Conservatives have nominated financial services worker Don Stewart, the NDP candidate is non-profit director Amrit Parhar and the Green Party is represented by candidate Christian Cullis, a constituent co-ordinator for Toronto city councillor Dianne Saxe. The People's Party of Canada has nominated business consultant Dennis Wilson.

The choice doesn't end there though.

There are 84 candidates on the ballot, making it the longest in the history of federal politics, according to Elections Canada.

A debate is being held on Monday from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at St. Michael and All Angels Anglican Church. Candidates from the Liberal, NDP, Conservative and Green parties have been invited.

Casa Loma and a view of downtown Toronto, as seen from the air.
Casa Loma in the riding of Toronto-St. Paul's, a traditional Liberal stronghold.

 (Patrick Morrell/CBC News)

The Midtown Toronto riding is home to nearly 117,000 people, according to the 2021 census. Its boundaries run roughly from Dupont Street in the south to Eglinton Avenue in the north, and Dufferin Street in the west to Mount Pleasant Road in the east.

Advance voting runs from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day from June 14 to June 17. Voters can cast their ballot during those times at their assigned advanced polling station. Voters can also cast an early ballot on June 18, before 6 p.m., at the riding's Elections Canada office.

Voters can register to vote by mail if they apply before 6 p.m. on June 18.

Election day is June 24. Voting will run from 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.

CUBAN MISSLE CRISIS REDUX

US attack sub, Canada navy patrol ship arrive in Cuba on heels of Russian warships

WILL PUTIN BANG HIS SHOE

Fri, June 14, 2024 

US attack sub, Canada navy patrol ship arrive in Cuba on heels of Russian warships


By Dave Sherwood

HAVANA (Reuters) -A Canadian navy patrol ship sailed into Havana early on Friday, just hours after the United States announced a fast-attack submarine had docked at its Guantanamo naval base in Cuba, both vessels on the heels of Russian warships that arrived on the island earlier this week.

The confluence of Russian, Canadian and U.S. vessels in Cuba - a Communist-run island nation just 145 km (90 miles) south of Florida - was a reminder of old Cold War tensions and fraught ties between Russia and Western nations over the Ukraine war.


However, both the U.S. and Cuba have said the Russian warships pose no threat to the region. Russia has also characterized the arrival of its warships in allied Cuba as routine.

The Admiral Gorshkov frigate and the nuclear-powered submarine Kazan, half submerged with its crew on deck, sailed into Havana harbor on Wednesday after conducting "high-precision missile weapons" training in the Atlantic Ocean, Russia's defence ministry said.

Canada`s Margaret Brooke patrol vessel began maneuvers early on Friday to enter Havana harbor, part of what the Canadian Joint Operations Command called "a port visit ... in recognition of the long-standing bilateral relationship between Canada and Cuba."

Hours earlier, the U.S. Southern Command said the fast-attack submarine Helena had arrived on a routine port visit to Guantanamo Bay, a U.S. naval base on the tip of the island around 850 km (530 miles) southeast of Havana.

"The vessel's location and transit were previously planned," Southern Command said on X.

Cuba`s foreign ministry said it had been informed of the arrival of the U.S. submarine but was not happy about it.

"Naval visits to a country are usually the result of an invitation, and this was not the case," said Vice Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío.

"Obviously we do not like the presence in our territory (of a submarine) belonging to a power that maintains an official and practical policy that is hostile against Cuba."

A Canadian diplomat characterized the Margaret Brooke`s arrival as "routine and part of long-standing cooperation between our two countries", adding it was "unrelated to the presence of the Russian ships."

Russia and Cuba were close allies under the former Soviet Union, and tensions with Washington over communism in its "backyard" peaked with the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Moscow has maintained ties with Havana.

When asked what message Moscow was sending, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday the West never appeared to take notice when Russia sent signals through diplomatic channels.

"As soon as it comes to exercises or sea voyages, we immediately hear questions and a desire to know what these messages are about," Zakharova said. "Why do only signals related only to our army and navy reach the West?"

The Russian warships are expected to remain in Havana harbor until Monday.

(Reporting by Dave Sherwood; Additional reporting by Marc Frank; Editing by Frances Kerry and Cynthia Osterman)

Canadian warship sharing an anchorage with Russian vessels in Cuba

CBC
Sat, June 15, 2024 

Canadian navy patrol boat HMCS Margaret Brooke passes by Russian nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine Kazan and frigate Admiral Gorshkov as it enters Havana's bay in Cuba on Friday. (Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters - image credit)


The Royal Canadian Navy now finds itself in the unusual position of both shadowing Russian warships as a threat in the Caribbean and sharing an anchorage with them as a guest in the port of Havana — because Canada accepted an invitation to send a patrol ship to Cuba while the Russian navy is in town.

And it's not clear just who in government or the military knew about the invitation from Cuba. The Caribbean nation has been a full-throated supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin's war on Ukraine and Cubans have been fighting alongside Russian soldiers in that country.

For several days, the frigate HMCS Ville de Québec has been tasked with shadowing the Russian ships, which conducted missile exercises during their Atlantic crossing using Moscow's new Zircon hypersonic missiles. The Ville de Québec is part of a three-ship group that tracked the Russians, along with the U.S. destroyer USS Truxton and U.S. Coast Guard cutter USCGS Stone.

A Canadian CP-140 surveillance plane flying out of Jacksonville, Florida is also keeping a close eye on the Russians. The destroyer USS Donald Cook also appears to have joined the mission in the Caribbean, in addition to U.S. naval surveillance aircraft.

And yet on Friday, Canada's Harry DeWolf-class offshore patrol vessel HMCS Margaret Brooke sailed into Havana as a guest of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba, just hours after the Russian flotilla docked in the same harbour.

Cuba invited the Canadians to Havana to celebrate "the long-standing bilateral relationship between Canada and Cuba," according to a tweet by Canadian Joint Operations Command.

No Canadian naval vessel had visited Cuba for more than 50 years until Justin Trudeau came to power at the end of 2015.

In November 2016, he visited Havana hoping to meet the dying Fidel Castro. That didn't happen but Trudeau did publicly embrace Raul Castro and the Castro brothers' chosen successor, Miguel Diaz-Canel, and called Cuba an "ally" of Canada during a talk at the University of Havana.

Three days later, the frigate HMCS Fredericton set sail for Havana for a visit then-defence minister Harjit Sajjan said would celebrate the "strong, positive and productive relationship" between Cuba and Canada.

A beaming Miguel Diaz-Canel looks on as Canada's Justin Trudeau shakes hands with Raul Castro in Havana on Nov. 16, 2016. Castro introduced Trudeau to the man who would replace him as president two years later.

A beaming Miguel Diaz-Canel looks on as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shakes hands with Raul Castro in Havana on Nov. 16, 2016. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

The Trudeau government's relationship with the Cuban Communist Party regime has frequently drawn criticism from Canada's Cuban community. When Cubans took to the streets to demand the end of the 62-year dictatorship on July 11, 2021, Cuban-Canadians accused the Trudeau government of downplaying their political demands and attempting to misrepresent Cubans' demands for democracy as mere gripes about shortages of food and medicines.

The Margaret Brooke is the first Canadian warship to visit Havana since the Fredericton, and the second to visit Cuba (HMCS Charlottetown stopped in Santiago de Cuba in 2018). Many in the Cuban-Canadian community say it's less appropriate than ever for Canada to appear to bolster the Cuban regime in the wake of a harsh crackdown on dissidents that has seen the return of decades-long sentences for political prisoners.

They also cite Cuba's new and far-reaching alliance with Putin's Russia. Moscow's footprint in Cuba — which includes the re-opened Lourdes spy base — is now bigger than it has been since the end of the Cold War.

Mixed messages from Canada

It was initially unclear who in the Canadian government authorized the Havana visit or who knew that the Margaret Brooke had been invited at the same time as the Russians.

However, a spokesperson for Defence Minister Bill Blair said on Saturday that the minister authorized the port visit "on the advice of the Navy and the Canadian Joint Operations Command."

"We believe that this marked an especially important time to show a Canadian presence in the region," Daniel Minden said in a statement.

On Friday, a spokesperson for the Department of National Defence (DND) told CBC News that the department was aware the Russians would be in the Havana port on the same days as the Canadians.

But when asked about the visit on CBC's Power and Politics on Thursday evening, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly told host David Cochrane she knew nothing about it.

"This is something I have to look more closely into," she said. "This is information that is news to me."

Four hours later, Global Affairs Canada spokesperson John Babcock suggested that the Cuba visit was part of a deliberate departmental strategy.

"Amidst global insecurity, Canada believes in pragmatic diplomacy to engage countries of different perspectives while we continue to uphold our values and interests and defend the international rules-based order," he told CBC News.

The friendly visit sends a confusing message about Canada's allegiances, said Russian political scientist Vladimir Rouvinski, director of the CIES Research Center at Icesi University in Colombia and an expert on Russia's presence in the Western hemisphere.

"I think it's a very unfortunate situation for Canada," he told CBC News. "It also shows that one has to be very careful when doing this kind of planning with Cuba" which, he said, "knew that Russians would come and Canada would come at the same time, of course."

Cuba has its own motives for wanting Canada to visit, said Rouvinski. "Cuba is interested in finding a way to pressure the Western countries to change their attitude towards Cuba," he said.

But by putting Canada in an embarrassing situation, he said, Cuba risks damaging its relationship with Ottawa.

The most obvious beneficiary of the situation is Russia, he said.

"There is a very important symbolic component in what is happening now in Havana Bay for Russia," he said. Russia, he argued, is sending NATO a message that if it's going to be in Russia's backyard, "Russia is capable of playing their own game in such a distant territory as the Western Hemisphere and the Caribbean."

Causing embarrassment to Canada, and creating the impression that western allies are divided over Russia, makes the symbolism even more valuable to Moscow, he added.

"It's also the message to be able to say who is controlling what," said Rouvinski.

Visit gives a boost to Communist Party

Eloy Viera is a Cuban independent journalist with the publication El Toque, a popular online publication on the island that annoys Cuban authorities by publishing black market exchange rates for dollars and euros.

He said the Communist Party will use the Canadian visit domestically to try to show the Cuban people the country is not diplomatically isolated.

"The image they want to send to the world is, 'We are with everyone, we are close to Russia, but at the same time we are also close to one of its adversaries, in this case Canada," he said.

A convertible American classic car drives by as people watch the Russia's Kazan nuclear-powered submarine arrive in the port of Havana, Cuba, Wednesday, June 12, 2024. A fleet of Russian warships arrived in Cuban waters Wednesday ahead of planned military exercises in the Caribbean.

A classic American convertible drives by as people watch Russia's Kazan nuclear-powered submarine arrive in the port of Havana on Wednesday. (Ariel Ley/The Associated Press)

Viera said Canada was unwise to accept the invitation.

"That's one of the main problems when a democratic government like Canada's deals with an autocratic regime like Cuba's — you are taking the risk to be manipulated by someone that is a master in manipulation," he said.

"Everything is part of the game that right now is being handled from Havana. It's not handled from Ottawa, it's handled from Havana."

The U.S. has made no comment on Canada's presence in Havana port but on Thursday, as the Russian nuclear submarine Kazan sailed into Havana, the U.S. nuclear-powered sub USS Helena slipped into the American base at Guantanamo Bay, a move Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodrgiuez called a "provocative escalation."

'Nothing happens by coincidence'

Juan Antonio Blanco Gil is a former Cuban diplomat and historian who lives in Miami and has written extensively about Cuba's foreign policy.

"Nothing happens by coincidence and the Russians were planning this with the Cubans," he told CBC News. Had the Cubans been interested in sparing the Canadians from an awkward cohabitation with the Russian flotilla, he said, "it would have been very easy to change the date a little bit before or after the event of the Russians.

"They didn't. So there was a point in trying to bring together these two forces in Havana."

The Russian ships are expected to leave Cuba on Monday and head for Venezuela, where the Nicolas Maduro government is another major backer of Putin and the war in Ukraine.

"The Canadian Armed Forces will continue to track the movements and activities of the Russian naval flotilla" after it departs Havana, Kened Sadiku of DND told CBC News.

People watch the Russian Navy Admiral Gorshkov frigate arrive at the port of Havana, Cuba on Wednesday, June 12, 2024. A fleet of Russian warships reached Cuban waters on Wednesday ahead of planned military exercises in the Caribbean.

People watch the Russian frigate Admiral Gorshkov frigate arrive at the port of Havana on Wednesday. A fleet of Russian warships reached Cuban waters on Wednesday ahead of planned military exercises in the Caribbean. (Ariel Ley/The Associated Press)

Blanco said both the Cuban and the Venezuelan regimes face a difficult summer and have reasons for wanting the Russian ships close by.

The Maduro regime agreed to hold elections this year as part of a deal to escape sanctions, although that deal fell apart in April. While Maduro has banned the main opposition candidate from running, and few expect a genuinely free vote, his United Socialist Party knows it faces a major challenge.

White House, Pentagon might have to think twice

"They want the Russians to show the flag in the Caribbean for two reasons. The Venezuelans, because they have a very difficult political crisis with the coming election, and the Cubans who are going through the worst economic, social, political crisis of the last 65 years," said Blanco.

"They are also asking this fleet to be there because if they have to eventually use lethal force to contain demonstrations ... they would like the Russians to be around to complicate decisions in the White House and the National Security Council."

Blanco said that if the U.S. wished to retaliate against either country for some crackdown, "they would have to think twice if they have Russians in the middle of the Caribbean Sea going around. I think that that is the calculation of the Cubans."

Although U.S. intelligence has assessed that neither the Zircon missiles on the Admiral Gorshkov nor the Kalibr missiles on the Kazan are fitted with nuclear warheads (though both are nuclear-capable), Blanco said he believes Havana would like to persuade the Kremlin to change that posture.

"What the Cubans are dreaming of, and what they're working for, is to inspire Putin into placing a continuous nuclear presence in Cuba through the fleet," he said.

Blanco points out that Russia has every right to send its ships fully-armed anywhere in international waters, and can even transit the Panama Canal with nuclear weapons aboard.

By simply rotating vessels such as the Gorshkov or the Kazan through the region, he said, Cuba could threaten the continental U.S. with more megatons of close-range missiles than it could have using all the land-based missiles it had in 1962.

"You don't need to re-enact the October (Cuban missile) crisis," he said.

Friendly feelings may be one-sided

Blanco said there continues to be a mismatch between Canada's friendly and trusting approach to the Cuban Communist Party and Havana's more pragmatic view of Canada.

"The Cubans have very clear in their mind who are their enemies — the United States and the West, and that includes Canada, like it or not," he said. "The Canadians have never really digested that they are seen in Havana as the enemy, as being part of the enemy because they're part of the West ... they're in an alliance with the United States."

Havana can use Canada's pride in its independent foreign policy on Cuba to drive a wedge between the two NATO allies at a time when both Russia and Cuba are moving closer because of the war in Ukraine, Blanco said.

"In the minds of the Cuban elite, Canada is not a friend, it's a country that they can — I don't want to use the word manipulate, but they can kind of dance around and make them act in ways that would not align totally with the main enemy, which obviously is the United States," he said.

"The Canadians, from their view, believe that all these gestures are going to be constructive and help to bring the Cuban elite to their senses and have them open up to a peaceful transition. I am positive that they believe so and I'm positive that they are wrong in that calculation, unfortunately.

"I would love them to be right, but unfortunately from my perspective, I don't think that they are."

U.S. debated canceling sub deployment to Cuba after learning of Russia’s warship plans

Michael Wilner
Fri, June 14, 2024 


Plans by the U.S. Navy to deploy a nuclear submarine to Cuba this week were considered so routine, little thought was given to the move within the U.S. government — until the Biden administration learned of Russia’s plans to dock one of its own in Havana at the same time.

The Navy had planned for weeks to deploy the USS Helena, a nuclear-powered, fast- attack submarine, to the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base as “part of our routine naval activities,” one official with U.S. Southern Command, based in Doral, said.

But the discovery that Russia intended to send several combat vessels and the Kazan — one of its most advanced nuclear submarines — to the region for military exercises this week sparked a debate among Navy and administration officials whether to proceed with the Helena deployment, or to change or cancel it, two officials familiar with the matter told McClatchy and the Miami Herald.

“There was a discussion over whether to proceed,” one official familiar with the matter said.

Biden administration officials had already believed that Cuba approved Russia’s latest port call “at least in part because of Havana’s displeasure” over a similar event last year, in which a U.S. submarine visited the Guantanamo base, infuriating the Cuban government, one U.S. official said. Officials feared that a second visit, announced during the Russian exercises, could escalate tensions further.

Ultimately, the Navy argued that changing or canceling a U.S. military deployment to accommodate the movements of another power would set a bad precedent.

“We see no reason to alter previously planned, routine activity in response to Russian activity in the region,” said the Southcom official, who noted that Cuba was provided notice of Helena’s arrival.

The internal debate reflects sensitivities around a set of military maneuvers that would, in most other circumstances, be viewed as routine. The Cuban, Russian, and U.S. governments have all put out statements making clear that their actions are not intended to pose a threat to their adversaries.

Yet an increase in tensions between Moscow and Washington over U.S. support for Ukraine, and Russia’s decision to deploy naval combat vessels within 30 miles of U.S. shores, has contributed to the sense that these movements may be different.

Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security advisor, told reporters on Wednesday that the current Russian exercises were “distinct” due to the inclusion of the Kazan.

“They have a submarine associated with this port visit that they have not had before,” Sullivan said, “But fundamentally, the notion that Russia takes some of its Russian naval assets and does a port visit to Havana is something that we’ve seen before.”

“It’s something we watch closely, carefully,” he added. “We will see how this unfolds in the coming days.”

The Russian flotilla could move south through the Caribbean, down to Venezuela, as soon as next week.


US nuclear-powered submarine arrives in Guantanamo Bay a day after Russian Navy docks in Havana

Sam Simpson and Oren Liebermann, CNN
Fri, June 14, 2024 

The USS Helena, a fast-attack nuclear submarine, surfaced in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a day after Russian naval forces arrived in Havana to conduct drills with the island nation, a Russian ally.

In a statement posted on X, US Southern Command said, “The fast-attack submarine USS Helena is in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as part of a routine port visit as it transits the U.S. Southern Command geographic area of responsibility while conducting its global maritime security and national defense mission.”

The specific movements of Navy submarines are highly classified and are rarely disclosed publicly.

The Pentagon has reiterated the presence of the Russian flotilla, despite its being 90 miles from the coast of Florida, does not pose a threat to the security of the United States. Navy destroyers, as well as P-8 submarine hunting aircraft, tracked the movements of the Russian ships as they made their way south off the east coast of the United States.

People watch a ship belonging to the Russian Navy flotilla arrive at the port of Havana on Wednesday, June 12, 2024, in Havana, Cuba. - Yander Zamora/Anadolu/Getty Images

“We’ve been tracking the Russians’ plans for this. This is not a surprise. We’ve seen them do this — these type of port calls before, and these are, you know, routine naval visits that we’ve seen under different administrations,” said Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh.

She added, “We’re always, constantly going to monitor any foreign vessels operating near US territorial waters. We of course take it seriously, but these exercises don’t pose a threat to the United States.”

The Norfolk-based USS Helena is a Los Angeles-class, fast-attack, nuclear-powered submarine, first commissioned in the 1980s. It is designed to surveil and respond to threats globally.

The USS Pasadena, another Los-Angeles class fast attack submarine, stopped in Guantanamo Bay last July, sparking furor from the Cuban government, which called it an escalation. The Pentagon said the current visit of a Russian submarine to Cuba was “at least in part” a response to last year’s visit of a US submarine.


Russia says the US doesn't have any reason to worry about the nuclear submarine and the massive warship its navy has cruising off the coast of Cuba

Aditi Bharade
Thu, June 13, 2024 

The Kremlin has said that its navy vessels stationed off of Cuba pose no threat.


The submarine and navy frigate sailed there for military exercises in the Caribbean.


Russia's assurances come despite the fact that the vessels are some of Moscow's most lethal assets.

The arrival of powerful missile-capable naval assets in Cuban waters should not set off alarm bells, Russia said to the US.

A navy frigate and the nuclear-powered submarine pulled into Cuba's coast near Havana on Wednesday, ahead of air and military exercises in the Caribbean. Along with two other vessels, these Russian navy assets were scheduled to be stationed in Cuba for a five-day visit.

"This is a normal practice for all states, including such a large maritime power as Russia," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, per Reuters. "So we don't see any reason to worry in this case."

Russia's reassurances that the vessels in Cuba pose no harm come in spite of the fact that they are some of the Kremlin's most lethal military assets.

For one, the Kazan submarine currently near Havana is one of the new Severodvinsk class vessels. The submarines in this class are hard to detect and have a dangerous combination of stealth and striking power — and as such, have vexed the US and NATO for years.

Also in Cuba is the Admiral Gorshkov Russian frigate, which is armed to the teeth with Putin's prized Zircon scramjet-powered hypersonic cruise missiles. The weapons, which the Kremlin claims are unbeatable, are relatively new in Moscow's arsenal.

The Cuban foreign ministry, for its part, echoed Russia's sentiments, saying that the vessels pose no threat, per Reuters.

In a press conference on Tuesday, Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said that the Department of Defense is monitoring the situation, but does not anticipate any threat from the warships.

"Again, I think what's important here is that what Russia is doing in these exercises, they don't pose a threat to the United States, but of course we're going to continue to monitor," she said.

The arrival of the ships is largely seen as a flex by Russia to compensate for its major losses in the Black Sea.

In April, Ukraine said that it used drones, missiles, and other weapons in its arsenal to destroy many Russian warships.

And while US officials may be quick to say there's no immediate threat, the Los Angeles-class USS Helena attack submarine US attack submarine sailed up to Guantanamo Bay — about 500 miles away from the Russian vessels on Thursday — shortly after Russia's Kazan sub showed up.

The US Southern Command said in a statement on X on Thursday that the sub was there as part of a routine port visit.

Representatives for the US Southern Command and Russian defense ministry didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Ontario landlords who owe investors $144M 'misappropriated' funds for 'extravagant' expenses: court report

CBC
Fri, June 14, 2024 

Ryan Molony, Robby Clark, Dylan Suitor and Aruba Butt, left to right, bought hundreds of rental properties across Ontario under a web of corporations. (siddevelopments/Instagram, robbywclark1/Facebook, Dylan Suitor/Facebook, robbywclark1/Facebook - image credit)

As their real estate business was failing, a group of Ontario landlords spent millions of dollars of investors' money on "extravagant" expenses, ranging from renting a luxury vacation home in Hawaii, to footing a $5,000 Miami strip club bill to flying on private jets.

Those are among the findings of KSV Advisory, a court-appointed monitor given special powers by Superior Court to investigate the web of corporations linked to four landlords:

Former YTV actor Robbie Clark.


Hamilton-area real estate agent Dylan Suitor.


Burlington business owners Aruba Butt and Ryan Molony.

Their 11 corporations currently have bankruptcy protection from over 30 lawsuits after they failed to pay back over $144 million borrowed from investors.


In a 92-page report released this week, KSV said the landlords appear to have "diverted, misused or misappropriated funds that were borrowed from investors."

"Funds were improperly used for their personal benefits or extravagant expenses … without any discernible benefit to the business," it says.

CBC report detailed apparent spending

The landlords had used first and second mortgages and unsecured promissory notes from private lenders to buy up 800 properties, mostly in small Ontario cities, to renovate and rent out at a higher cost or sell them.

CBC Hamilton revealed in February that the landlords flaunted a lavish lifestyle throughout 2022, even as their business was running out of money, properties sat derelict and vacant, and contractors, utility bills and property taxes went unpaid.

The court agreed for KSV to conduct an investigation earlier this spring, following concerns raised by investors in the wake of the CBC report.

The KSV report reveals more details about how the landlords' spending unravelled the business, which the landlords, also known as the applicants, "vigorously dispute," as stated in a letter from their lawyer to investors on Wednesday.

Robby Clark and Aruba Butt are seen on a yacht.

Clark and Butt are seen on a yacht. (Instagram/billionaireclassy)

Parts of the KSV report published online have been redacted and information provided by the landlords wasn't included "without explanation," wrote Alex Payne, a lawyer with Bennett Jones.

"It appears that the monitor has either not reviewed, misunderstood, and/or ignored certain of the applicants' responses," Payne said in the letter.

He added they will work with the monitor to "dispel" concerns raised in the report.

Steven D'Amico, a spokesperson for the landlords, told CBC Hamilton in a statement that their business practices are lawful, allegations of "excessive luxury expenditures" are inaccurate — and that the purchases are related to company retreats and capital-raising activities, and a small portion of the companies' overall expenses.

D'Amico works in crisis communications for the Florida-based firm JConnelly.

Landlords due in court over bankruptcy protection

The landlords and investors are preparing to go to court in the coming days. Both sides will argue whether or not the bankruptcy protection — and protection from investors looking to recoup their money — should expire June 24.

The business was fuelled by over 1,300 loans, the vast majority of which came from Hamilton mortgage broker Claire Drage and her company, the Windrose Group, which closed down earlier this year.

KSV reviewed presentations Windrose made to convince people to invest with Suitor, Butt and Molony, and found them to be "misleading." The presentations didn't convey the amount of debt they'd taken on and how much they were paying to service that debt — which was substantial.

Investors were under the impression that when they lent their money to the landlords, it was being used to buy or renovate a specific property, the KSV report says. But the landlords transferred over $12 million to corporations linked to other properties without investors knowing.

During a call with investors in April 2024, KSV learned many people took "significant issue" with this practice of moving money to whatever company needed it, the report says.

Suitor gives financial advice in a video posted to his real estate business's Facebook page on June 13, 2024.

Suitor gives financial advice in a video posted to his real estate business's Facebook page on June 12. (Elevation Realty Network/Facebook)

And in at least once instance, Suitor renewed a loan for a Sault Ste. Marie property that had been sold without investors' knowledge, the report says. Suitor also renewed two other loans without telling investors the property, in Timmins, had burned down.

The landlords had also transferred over $21 million to their personal bank accounts, credit cards and unrelated corporations, KSV found.

The landlords failed to provide adequate financial records that tracked their spending, which has caused KSV "substantial concern," according to its report.

"However, even more concerning to the monitor is the timing of many of these transfers."

Millions transferred to personal accounts

When Windrose and other sources acting on behalf of investors deposited large amounts of money into the corporate accounts, most or all of it would be transferred to unrelated corporations within days or weeks, says the report.

Butt, for example, received a $400,000 transfer marked as "dividend" to her bank account in May 2022, as did a corporation owned by Drage's family members. In the months that followed, the business faced "severe liquidity issues" and missed interest payments, says the report.

In total, it says:

Butt transferred $2.7 million to her personal account.


Suitor transferred nearly $630,000 to his, with the majority going towards his credit cards.


Clark transferred close to $1 million and Molony nearly $460,000.

D'Amico, their spokesperson, said the vast majority of these payments are actually reimbursements for business expenses such as renovations and utilities.


Molony and Clark appear together in the 2021 video partying at a nightclub.

Molony and Clark appear together, partying at a nightclub, in a 2021 video. (billonaireclassy/Instagram)

The landlords also used the loans to pay for jewelry, appearances with social media influencers, a cut from a famous hairdresser, stays in luxury hotels, and expensive meals in Paris and New York City, the report says.

KSV spoke to Drage throughout the investigation and she said she had similar expectations as investors, didn't know the landlords were using the loans in this way and only became aware of their cash flow issues in late 2022 or early 2023. She is currently facing about 20 lawsuits filed by lenders across Ontario.

Drage did not respond to a request for comment through her lawyers.

By 2023, the landlords, through their companies, were borrowing money just to make interest payments and other debt obligations, the report says.

Even when it was clear the business was operating at a "significant loss" with no "exit strategy" and they wouldn't be able to pay back all investors, the landlords renewed loans. This practice continued into January 2024, shortly before they applied for bankruptcy protection.

Overall, KSV found investor funds were "mismanaged" to the benefit of the landlords.

Loblaws boycott: Canadians cheer fake No Name cake ad that spoofs grocery giant, Galen Weston — 'Eat the rich'

A fake No Name advertisement postered to a Calgary bus shelter is just the latest satirical attack on Loblaw, as the grocery giant is the target of a national boycott

Elianna Lev
Updated Fri, June 14, 2024 


A fake No Name advertisement postered to a Calgary bus shelter is just the latest satirical attack on Loblaw, as the grocery giant is the target of a national boycott.


A fake No Name advertisement postered to a Calgary bus shelter is just the latest in a series of satirical attacks on Loblaw and its branding, as the grocery giant is the target of a national boycott started by a Reddit group called "Loblaws Is Out of Control."

The “ad” looks similar to the familiar No Name branding with straightforward messaging and bright yellow colour, except it features the word “Peasants” above a box of chocolate cake that is labeled “Let them eat cake deluxe cake mix” in both French and English. At the bottom, a suggested serving encourages bakers to “Eat the Rich."
No surprise Loblaw's 'unbranded' brand is being targeted: Expert

Brad Davis is an associate professor of marketing at Wilfrid Laurier University. He says No Name, which was launched by Loblaw in 1978, is meant as a no frills, in-store “unbranded” brand.


It’s intended to give customers straight pricing competition, while allowing the grocery giant to save on having to pay middlemen. That way, they can invest on improving the quality of the products by keeping it in-house.

“They serve a purpose of being a discount brand for (products) where most people don’t perceive there’s a significant difference between the No Name brand and more expensive, well-known brands,” David tells Yahoo Canada.

Loblaw and its affiliate stores carry products under the "No Name" brand. (R.J. Johnston/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

In turn, the company will promote the in-house brands more, so they are able to make more money off of them.

Davis says it’s not surprising that the No Name brand is being targeted in the midst of the ongoing national boycott of Loblaw and its affiliated stores, like Shoppers Drug Mart, Zehrs, Real Canadian Superstore, No Frills and the flagship Loblaws. The boycott was organized for the month of May by the "Loblaws Is Out of Control" Reddit group, and has been extended indefinitely.

Davis classifies the fake No Name ad as “subvertising,” or subversive advertising, which is a spoof or parody of corporate advertisement with the intention of making a statement.

“There is a whole underground mentality that takes shots at brands and a lot of the marketing stuff, and now with Photoshop, some of the quality of the graffiti they do is very professional,” he says.

A notable example is Adbusters, a Vancouver-based anti-consumerist media company known for its subversive advertising. Some of the brands targeted by Adbusters have included Coca Cola and Nike.

Loblaw and its affiliate stores carry products under the "No Name" brand. (R.J. Johnston/Toronto Star via Getty Images)
Loblaw has been spoofed before: 'Roblaws' T-shirts and more merch

This is not the first time Loblaw branding has been a target of satirical criticism. In February, Toronto-based artist Christopher Lambe produced a series of T-shirts, buttons and magnets that feature a pun on Loblaws and a play on the store's tagline. The merchandise featured the word "Roblaw$" with the S replaced by a dollar sign. The tagline, originally "Live Life Well," was altered to "Live Life Hungry." The parodic logo was changed to an image of a gun and a basket.

After uploading the inventory to his Etsy account, Lambe was hit by an Intellectual Properties infringement case filed to the online retailer by the Loblaw corporation, and the merch was taken down.

After Lambe challenged the takedown, he says Etsy never gave evidence of his violation, so he put the shirts back up on his account.

Lambe has since expanded his merchandise to include T-shirts that parody Shoppers Drug Mart, which read “Shoppers Thug Mart” and “Westons Lack Heart” and are being sold on another website.

He tells Yahoo Canada that he has sold over 2,000 shirts so far.

A Toronto-based artist, Christopher Lambe (right), whose parody T-shirts target large corporations is catching the ire of Loblaw after he featured an edgy take on the grocery giant's logo and slogan.
Canadians react to No Name parody cake ad: 'The satire is rich and moist'

The poster, which was shared to the Reddit forum "Loblaws Is Out of Control," has garnered more than 8,000 upvotes and hundreds of comments. Though the artist responsible for the ad has not made themselves known, Canadians ran to their defense and have already offered to start a crowd-funding campaign for their creativity.

“Cake mix, $1; Ingredients you have to add, $15,” Frosty-Cap3344 wrote.

“The satire is rich and moist,” Longjumping-Bag-8260 wrote.

"I really love the use of the big bold 'peasants' at the top," user cinnamon_sparkle27 wrote. "This design is so well done that at first glance you would actually think it’s a legitimate Loblaws ad."

Loblaw and its affiliate stores carry products under the "No Name" brand. (R.J. Johnston/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

"Politician with robes": Expert says secret tape exposes Samuel Alito's "apocalyptic vision"

HE VIEWS ABORTION AS WITCHCRAFT!

Tatyana Tandanpolie

SALON
Thu, June 13, 2024 

Samuel Alito Erin Schaff-Pool/Getty Images

Secret tapes of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito released publicly Monday have plunged the conservative justice and the high court into deeper controversy, exposing a conversation that saw Alito endorsing ultra-conservative hot-takes.

The audio, obtained and first reported by Rolling Stone, came just weeks after reports of far-right-aligned flags being flown outside Alito's home sparked widespread backlash. The reports follow a year of ethics scandal-exposés involving both him and Justice Clarence Thomas. The newly revealed recordings have similarly prompted harsh rebuke of the justice, with legal experts decrying Alito's boosting of Christian nationalist rhetoric on the tapes as unethical.

"Justice Alito’s recorded comments aren’t so much revealing as they are confirming," James Sample, a Hofstra University constitutional law professor, told Salon. "They reinforce what we already know: that Justice Alito sees his raison d’etre as being more of an ideological culture warrior more than a jurist. And he’s indisputably winning the wars he is waging."

The bevy of revelations have also intensified public scrutiny of the Supreme Court in the wake of a series of contentious decisions in recent years, including eliminating federal protections for abortion care and gutting race-based affirmative action, and have led ethics watchdogs and government officials to declare that an externally enforced ethics code be imposed on the justices, a call that Senate Democrats renewed by seeking to pass a binding-ethics code proposal Wednesday in light of the new tapes.

These new tapes mark "yet another self-inflicted wound on the part of the Supreme Court," according to David Schultz, a professor of legal studies and political science at Hamline University.

"We've seen this gradual deterioration of support for the courts, and it's clearly collapsed after the Dobbs opinion. I mean, none of this is going to turn it around," Schultz told Salon, adding: "It's just going to further erode support for the judiciary. And I hate to say this at a time where you've got [former president Donald Trump] attacking the court system and where you really need people to be defending the courts."

Alito's conversation occurred during the Supreme Court Historical Society's annual dinner earlier this month and was recorded by liberal documentary filmmaker Lauren Windsor, who describes herself as an "advocacy journalist" and has a reputation for secretly recording conservatives.

Windsor, who attended the event under her real name and peppered Alito with questions aligned with far-right ideology, got the justice to offer up his perspective on the opinions she touted. At one point in their exchange, she received an endorsement from the justice of her argument that ending the nation's political polarization by negotiating with the political left not possible, and that it's a matter of "winning" rather than compromise.

“I think you’re probably right,” Alito told Windsor. “On one side or the other — one side or the other is going to win. I don’t know. I mean, there can be a way of working — a way of living together peacefully, but it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised. They really can’t be compromised. So it’s not like you are going to split the difference.”

In another instance, Alito said he agreed with her position that the country's Christian population has "got to keep fighting" to “return our country to a place of godliness.”


EXCLUSIVE UNDERCOVER AUDIO:
Sam Alito x John Roberts x The Undercurrent 🧵

1/ Justice Alito admits lack of impartiality with the Left, says: “One side or the other is going to win.” pic.twitter.com/b5nmxToZ9z

— Lauren Windsor (@lawindsor) June 10, 2024

Schultz argued that the problems with the exchange are three-fold. First, it presents "almost an apocalyptic vision of American politics" of "dual-contending forces" that Alito appears to hint the resolution to aligns more with a "Christian vision." The second arises from his articulation of this vision, which flies in the face of the "myth" that these "justices are apolitical" and supposed to avoid "abandoning the neutrality."

Third, Alito's statements on the recording also appear to "reinforce both the appearance and the reality that he's voting ideology," that he's not "reading the Constitution neutrally," Schultz continued.

Windsor also secretly taped a conversation Chief Justice John Roberts at the dinner, but his responses to a line of questioning similar to what his colleague received appeared to come in sharp contrast to Alito's, ringing more neutral.

Roberts, according to The New York Times, instead, pushed back against Windsor's assertion that the court had to return the county to a more "moral path."

“Would you want me to be in charge of putting the nation on a more moral path?” Roberts rebutted. “That’s for people we elect. That’s not for lawyers.”

When Windsor expressed views that the U.S. is a "Christian nation" and the Supreme Court "should be guiding us in that path," the chief justice also disagreed, offering a more pluralistic counterpoint.

“I don’t know if that’s true," he said, adding: “I don’t know that we live in a Christian nation. I know a lot of Jewish and Muslim friends who would say maybe not, and it’s not our job to do that.”

2/ Chief Justice Roberts denies that America is a Christian nation. pic.twitter.com/hb3iFa5Jnv

— Lauren Windsor (@lawindsor) June 10, 2024

While Schultz said Roberts still shouldn't have addressed the questions, the chief justice's responses reflected a "more classic view" in terms of acknowledging the array of perspectives in the nation even with his orientation as a conservative justice.

"Roberts looks like he's a Chief Justice trying to defend the institution of the Supreme Court by at least coming across and looking somewhat more neutral," Schultz said. By comparison, Alito "looks like he's an advocate now," Schultz argued, adding: "He's the politician with robes."

"Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito often reach similar results on the merits," Sample added. "The difference is the extent to which they respect judicial norms."

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

Charles Geyh, a scholar of judicial ethics and law professor at Indiana University's Maurer School of Law, told Salon that, while he was still "troubled" by Alito's responses — calling Alito's rejection of political compromise disheartening — he finds the justice's comments to reflect a different interpretation of Windsor's questioning from that of Roberts.

Alito appeared to answer the questions, not in an official capacity, but as a conservative with matching views, Geyh said, whereas Roberts seemed to interpret the questioning from the perspective of his role as chief justice and the aims of the court.

"From a judicial ethics standpoint, I would have been deeply troubled if [Alito] had made it clear that he was saying the court needs to be turning us in a more godly direction, that the court needs to assert moral authority and move us to a particular place, that he, as a justice, sees it as his role to interpret the First Amendment — more specifically, the Freedom of Religion clause, the Establishment Clause — in a way that turns us to a godlier nation," Geyh, told Salon. "Then, I'd be flinging flares in the air. But I don't interpret him answering the question that way."

A 2002 Supreme Court decision, Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, held that state Supreme Court justices have a First Amendment right to voice their personal opinions on issues in the context of running for a judgeship, Geyh explained, arguing that the same thing applies here insofar as judges having opinions that they're entitled to.

While allowing his personal views to guide his decision-making on the bench is one of the ethics abuses critics have accused Alito of, especially in the wake of his recent scandals, Geyh argued that Alito's responses on the tape don't offer enough information about how he approaches his role to indicate that his personal beliefs do more than influence his read of the law in close cases as opposed to usurping his approach to his duties and decision making.

"Even if Alito thinks that we need a godlier nation, that doesn't automatically mean that he's going to disregard the First Amendment," said Geyh, who also previously served as counsel to the House Judiciary Committee.

While the justice's remarks do offer insight into his belief and how they may inform his legal views, Geyh continued, it "leads us down a path that's illegitimate if he basically is saying, 'Law be damned, I'm going to impose my personal views.' But if what we're saying is, 'The law is ambiguous. It's unclear how this case should be resolved under the establishment clause or the freedom of religion clause, and I am doing my best to interpret it as it should be understood, and my views inevitably influence the way I think about what outcome's best,' that's not illegitimate. That's just the way the world works in close cases."

Still, Geyh said, in a political climate when activists like Windsor are "arguably playing gotcha games" and the court's legitimacy is suffering in the public eye, in part, because of beliefs "bipartisan politics and agendas" drive the justices' decisions, the recent incidents signify the importance of judges being "cautious" and "ever-mindful of how their conduct has been politicized, and they have politicized their conduct themselves," especially in the case of a "political lightning rod" like Alito.

"It's not openly, affirmatively unethical for them to do what he did, but I think the preferred course is to stay under the radar, to do what you can to preserve your open mindedness as best you can and not lock yourself in in public statements that imply that you've got an ax to grind," he explained, referencing canon two of the ethics code the Supreme Court adopted last year.

The Supreme Court Historical Society's executive director, James Duff, condemned Windsor's "surreptitious recording of Justices at the event" as "inconsistent with the entire spirit of the evening" in a statement Monday. “Our policy is to ensure that all attendees, including the Justices, are treated with respect," Duff said.

Windsor, however, has defended her actions, explaining that she felt she had no other means of reporting on the justices' true thoughts.

“We have a court that has refused to submit to any accountability whatsoever — they are shrouded in secrecy,” Windsor said, per The Times. “I don’t know how, other than going undercover, I would have been able to get answers to these questions.”

On Tuesday night, Windsor dropped another undercover audio of Alito, recorded by a colleague at the same June 3 dinner.

In the latest tape, the justice appeared to blame partisan funding for the coverage of the Supreme Court's undisclosed lavish gifts and travel, specifically citing ProPublica, which published a series of bombshell reports in the last year on Alito and Thomas' failure to report the gifts on annual disclosures.

Asked why the Supreme Court is being "so attacked" and "targeted by the media these days," Alito responded plainly.

“They don’t like our decisions, and they don’t like how they anticipate we may decide some cases that are coming up. That’s the beginning of the end of it,” he said, according to Rolling Stone. “There are groups that are very well-funded by ideological groups that have spearheaded these attacks," he added. "That’s what it is.

EXCLUSIVE UNDERCOVER AUDIO feat. the debut of my colleague @Ally_Sammarco:
Alito v @ProPublica

Justice Alito rants on ProPublica and minimizes Justice Thomas’ extraordinary ethics breaches as “any little thing they can find" pic.twitter.com/HXFlaxRpWm

— Lauren Windsor (@lawindsor) June 12, 2024

Alito, Roberts secret recordings spark ethics concerns

FOR WHO?!

Dominick Mastrangelo
Thu, June 13, 2024 

A liberal activist’s secret recordings of two Supreme Court justices has engulfed the nation’s highest court into political controversy, while also raising questions about the ethics in how the conversations were obtained.

The activist, Lauren Windsor, approached conservative Justice Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts while wearing a concealed recording device at the Supreme Court Historical Society gala earlier this month.

Windsor attended as a member under her own name, but posed as a Catholic conservative with the explicit goal of eliciting unfiltered, controversial comments from those in attendance.

Windsor has argued going undercover was the only way to expose what she and many liberals have said is the court’s unacceptable right-wing tilt and the personal bitterness of its conservatives.

But critics contend Windsor crossed a line by misrepresenting herself to obtain the recordings, and warn her move might have further opened a Pandora’s box of political dirty tricks in the midst of an increasingly contentious election year.

“I worry about the cascading effect that something like this can have,” said William Howell, a professor at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. “It invites people with whom she disagrees with ideologically to do much the same and point to her actions as justification for doing it.”

On one recording, Windsor, who has a history of using surreptitious methods to catch conservatives saying embarrassing things, captured Alito saying of the left and right, “One side or the other is going to win.”

Windsor also talked to the justice’s wife, Martha-Ann Alito, who is heard on the recording promising revenge on the people who have raised controversy surrounding her and her husband.

The audio’s publication sparked instant outrage from court watchers and the historical society itself.

“We condemn the surreptitious recording of Justices at the event, which is inconsistent with the entire spirit of the evening,” the organization said in a statement to The Hill. “Attendees are advised that discussion of current cases, cases decided by this Court, or a Justice’s jurisprudence is strictly prohibited and may result in forfeiture of membership in the Society.”

Windsor did not respond to a request for comment from The Hill this week but in various media interviews has expressed no regret for her reporting methods.

The activist insists that recording the justices secretly was the only way she would have been able to shine a light on their personal beliefs.

“To people who want to pearl-clutch about this, please tell me how we’re going to get answers when the Supreme Court has been shrouded in secrecy and really refusing any degree of accountability whatsoever,” she said Tuesday on CNN.

During a subsequent appearance on cable news channel NewsNation, Windsor pushed back on suggestions she baited Alito into making controversial comments.

“I don’t think that I was baiting him,” she insisted. “I think that it coaxed him into a position that either was already held or that he came to that over the past year.”

Windsor’s expose comes amid a whirlwind time for the conservative-majority court, which has seen its objectivity and political independence questioned, particularly by those on the political left.

ProPublica has reported extensively in recent months on alleged ethics violations by members of the court while just last month, the Alitos were embroiled in a controversy over various flags flying over their properties.

Outside observers to the latest scandal say the increased scrutiny of conservatives on the court in recent months undermines Windsor’s argument that her recordings were revelatory enough to justify the means she used.

“We didn’t learn very much we didn’t already know from this,” said Susan Keith, a professor of media studies at Rutgers University. “There was nothing in what Alito said to her that you wouldn’t already expect to hear from him publicly.”

Covert operations and secret recordings with political agendas in mind are nothing new in modern election cycles and semiregular partisan publicity fights.

The right-wing group Project Veritas was well known during the years of the Trump administration for using hidden cameras and secret recording devices to obtain audio and video of public health officials, journalists and other perceived enemies of the right making unflattering remarks or espousing personal opinions on matters of public debate.

“This sort of technique [on both sides] of sneaking up on people and secretly recording them is just not fair,” Keith said. “I just don’t think it’s necessary in most situations.”

Windsor has, at the same time, shown deft media strategy in rolling out the audio clips she captured at the June 3 gala.

On Wednesday, as Windsor was making the rounds on cable news, Rolling Stone published new audio of Alito, provided to the outlet by the activist, on which he is heard bashing ProPublica’s reporting on the court, saying “they don’t like our decisions.”

And while Windsor is receiving outsized attention for her clandestine recordings, some observers note her work should be viewed differently from mainstream journalists covering the court regularly.

“Every time a major mainstream news outlet or news organization promotes one of her stories, they’re essentially paying her money and sending millions of people to her website,” said John Watson,

 a professor of journalism at American University.

“In journalism using deception to get information is inherently unethical. However, if the information is absolutely important for the public to have and there’s no other way to get it … I have yet to see anything she has done that reaches that threshold.”

 The Hill.

Justice Clarence Thomas took more trips on GOP megadonor’s private plane than previously known

Tierney Sneed and John Fritze, CNN
Thu, June 13, 2024 

Justice Clarence Thomas took several more trips on the private plane of GOP megadonor Harlan Crow than were previously known, a top Senate Democrat revealed Thursday.

According to information obtained by Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, Thomas traveled on Crow’s private jet during trips in 2017, 2019 and 2021 between various US states, as well as on a previously known 2019 trip to Indonesia, during which Thomas also stayed on Crow’s mega-yacht.

The newly revealed private plane trips add to the picture of luxury travel enjoyed by Thomas and bankrolled by friends of the justice who have ties to conservative politics.

Thomas has come under fire for his failure to include such trips on financial disclosure forms the justices release each year, though he and his defenders argue that he followed the court’s disclosure rules as they were understood at the time.

The revelation was likely to add to the tension between the high court, where conservatives hold a 6-3 majority, and Democrats on Capitol Hill, who have been pushing for more than a year for tighter ethics rules. A series of ethics scandals involving Thomas and, more recently, Justice Samuel Alito, have left public approval of the court at historic lows.

Last year, amid stories by ProPublica on the justice’s jet-setting lifestyle, the federal judiciary’s policy-making body said that travel on private planes should be reported by the justices closing a loophole that Thomas said had exempted him from reporting the “personal hospitality” he had received form his uber-wealthy friends. The court’s critics argue that the current understanding of the disclosure rules should apply retroactively.

Thomas, through a court spokeswoman, did not respond to a CNN inquiry about the new revelations and why the trips were not disclosed.

He previously said that he was advised at the time that he was not required to disclose the hospitality he received from the Crows, but that he intended to follow the recent changes to the guidance going forward. His defenders have pointed to a 2012 letter from the Judicial Conference, which administers the regulations for judges’ financial disclosures, that cleared him of claims at the time that he should have been reporting his trips with Crow.

Last week, with the release of his financial disclosures for 2023, Thomas said he had “inadvertently omitted” from previous financial filings a hotel stay paid by the Crows during the 2019 trip to Indonesia and his accommodations that same year at a private club they are members of in Monte Rio, California.

Yet he did not disclose his travel on Crow’s private plane for either of those trips that was revealed by Durbin.

In addition to that trip, according to the documents released by Durbin, Thomas traveled on Crow’s plane from St. Louis to Montana and then on to Dallas in 2017; on a 2019 round trip from Washington, DC, to Savannah, Georgia; and on a 2021 round trip from Washington, DC, to San Jose, California.

“The Senate Judiciary Committee’s ongoing investigation into the Supreme Court’s ethical crisis is producing new information - like what we’ve revealed today - and makes it crystal clear that the highest court needs an enforceable code of conduct, because its members continue to choose not to meet the moment,” Durbin said in a statement that pointed to Supreme Court ethics legislation put forward by Senate Democrats. A procedural maneuver by Durbin on Wednesday to pass the bill on the Senate floor was blocked by Republicans.

Elliot Berke, an attorney for Thomas, said the trips Senate Democrats called attention to on Thursday fell under the “hospitality exemption.” Thomas and others have previously said they understood the disclosure rules to exclude situations involving “personal hospitality.”

“Consequently, and as Justice Thomas has already explained, he and many other federal judges were advised that they were not required to report gifts of personal hospitality from friends who did not have business before the Court,” Berke told CNN.

Mark Paoletta, a former top Trump administration official and prominent Thomas ally, similarly said on X that Thomas disclosed the hotel and private club stays from the previous trips because they were not covered under the personal hospitality exemption – even before the 2023 changes to the disclosure guidance. He argued that a justice’s stays on a friend’s “home, planes” and “boats” were exempted under the rules until the 2023 revision.

Durbin and other Democrats launched probes into gifts and lavish travel Thomas received after a bombshell ProPublica report that detailed the Indonesia trip with Crow – during which Thomas and his wife Ginni Thomas stayed on Crow’s 162-foot yacht – and other extravagant trips that the Thomases took with Crow and Crow’s wife.

Crow – whom Thomas has described as among his family’s “dearest friends” – has said that he has never talked to Thomas about matters in front of the judiciary.

“Mr. Crow reached an agreement with the Senate Judiciary Committee to provide information responsive to its requests going back seven years,” Crow spokesperson Michael Zona said of the information revealed Thursday.

“Despite his serious and continued concerns about the legality and necessity of the inquiry, Mr. Crow engaged in good faith negotiations with the Committee from the beginning to resolve the matter. As a condition of this agreement, the Committee agreed to end its probe with respect to Mr. Crow,” Zona added.

Clarence Thomas Was A More Frequent Flyer On Harlan Crow Air Than We Knew

David Kurtz
Thu, June 13, 2024



Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas went up and away into the wild blue yonder aboard billionaire GOP donor Harlan Crow’s private jet three other times that he hasn’t reported on his financial disclosure filings, according to Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-IL).

Durbin’s revelation of the new information about Thomas’ travels came this afternoon, not even 24 hours after Senate Republicans killed a Durbin measure that would have imposed new ethics standards on the Supreme Court.

The demand for greater Supreme Court accountability has ramped up in the months since ProPublica published a Pulitzer Prize-winning series on freebies, gifts, and other financial benefits — including travel — that Crow had bestowed on Thomas but which Thomas had not included in his public financial disclosures.

Just last week, Thomas filed an amended 2019 report that for the first time included the travel that ProPublica had previously reported, a tacit though begrudging acknowledgement by Thomas that he should have included them in the original filing.

The three newly revealed trips announced today by Durbin were not included in Thomas’ amended filing last week.

The three previously unreported trips on Crow’s private jet include:

A May 2017 flight from St. Louis to Kalispell, Montana, with a return flight to Dallas;


A March 2019 round-trip flight between Washington, D.C. and Savannah, Georgia;


A June 2021 round-trip flight between Washington, D.C., and San Jose, California.

Durbin obtained the information about the three flights via a Judiciary Committee subpoena of Crow last November. You can see a portion of the relevant response from Crow’s lawyer here. It’s not clear when the committee obtained Crow’s responses or why Durbin released them today.

In a statement to CBS News, Crow’s office said he had reached an agreement with the committee to provide certain information going back seven years to resolve the matter.

Despite his serious and continued concerns about the legality and necessity of the inquiry, Mr. Crow engaged in good faith negotiations with the Committee from the beginning to resolve the matter. As a condition of this agreement, the Committee agreed to end its probe with respect to Mr. Crow.

Durbin has been a very reluctant warrior on Supreme Court ethics oversight, dismissing as useless the prospect of holding public committee hearings on the court’s ethical lapses and lack of institutional accountability. But Durbin did launch an investigation last fall and has slowly budged in recent days, a result of a combination of outside pressure and a new round of news reports about insurrectionist flags flying outside two of Justice Samuel Alito’s homes.

“The Senate Judiciary Committee’s ongoing investigation into the Supreme Court’s ethical crisis is producing new information — like what we’ve revealed today — and makes it crystal clear that the highest court needs an enforceable code of conduct, because its members continue to choose not to meet the moment,” Durbin said in a press release.

Crow owns a Bombardier Global 5000, ProPublica previously reported. It’s a long-range, twin-engine business jet with a reported range of more than 5,000 nautical miles and cruising speed upwards of 560 m.p.h.

Opinion
Clarence Thomas Fails to Disclose More Gifts From Right-Wing Buddy

Hafiz Rashid
Thu, June 13, 2024 at 3:33 PM MDT·2 min read
17

It turns out Clarence Thomas has failed to disclose even more free trips from conservative billionaire Harlan Crow, a Senate Judiciary Committee investigation uncovered.

At least three times, Crow provided trips on his private jet to the Supreme Court justice to destinations including a March 2019 trip to Thomas’s Georgia hometown, a May 2017 trip to Montana near Glacier National Park with a return flight to Dallas two days later, and a June 2021 roundtrip flight between San Jose, California, and Washington, D.C. The revelations were provided to the committee from Crow’s lawyer.

The purpose of the trips was not mentioned in the report, and Thomas has not reported them in his financial disclosures, even though some legal experts say it violates the law.

It may be the first of more revelations to come, according to Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin, who said that a full investigative report from Democrats on the committee would be released later in the summer.

“As a result of our investigation and subpoena authorization, we are providing the American public greater clarity on the extent of ethical lapses by Supreme Court justices,” Durbin said in a statement. The revelations make it “crystal clear that the highest court needs an enforceable code of conduct,” he added.

Last year, a ProPublica investigation found that Thomas received free luxury vacations from Crow nearly every year, which the Supreme Court justice failed to report until just last week. The publication also reported that Crow funded the renovation of the home where Thomas’s mother lives, as well as the private school tuition of Mark Martin, the grandson of Thomas’s sister Emma Mae Martin. Thomas and his wife, Ginni Thomas, were Martin’s legal guardians from age 6 to 19 but have since cut ties with Martin, whom Thomas once said he was raising as a “son,” Martin revealed in a recent interview.