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DARPA has successfully completed phase 1 of its Tactical Undersea Network Architecture (TUNA) program, a system of temporary sea buoys that will serve as a backup for military communications at sea. DARPA hopes to prove in the final phase that the TUNA Program is capable of maintaining the vital flow of data in the event primary networks are compromised.
 DARPA wraps up first phase of program developing temporary underwater fiber-optics communications networks to ensure connectivity when tactical networks are unavailable
DARPA’s Tactical Undersea Network Architecture (TUNA) program recently completed its initial phase, successfully developing concepts and technologies aimed at restoring connectivity for U.S. forces when traditional tactical networks are knocked offline or otherwise unavailable. The program now enters the next phase, which calls for the demonstration of a prototype of the system at sea.
TUNA seeks to develop and demonstrate novel, optical-fiber-based technology options and designs to temporarily restore radio frequency (RF) tactical data networks in a contested environment via an undersea optical fiber backbone. The concept involves deploying RF network node buoys—dropped from aircraft or ships, for example—that would be connected via thin underwater fiber-optic cables. The very-small-diameter fiber-optic cables being developed are designed to last 30 days in the rough ocean environment—long enough to provide essential connectivity until primary methods of communications are restored.
“Phase 1 of the program included successful modeling, simulation, and at-sea tests of unique fiber-cable and buoy-component technologies needed to make such an undersea architecture work,” said John Kamp, program manager in DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office. “Teams were able to design strong, hair-thin, buoyant fiber-optic cables able to withstand the pressure, saltwater, and currents of the ocean, as well as develop novel power generation concepts.”
Supplying power to floating buoy nodes on the open sea presents a particular challenge. During the first phase of the program, the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Lab (APL) developed a unique concept called the Wave Energy Buoy that Self-deploys (WEBS), which generates electricity from wave movement. The WEBS system is designed to fit into a cylinder that could be deployed from a ship or aircraft.
Having now entered its second and final phase, the program is advancing to design and implement an integrated end-to-end system, and to test and evaluate this system in laboratory and at-sea demonstrations. As a test case for the TUNA concept, teams are using Link 16—a common tactical data network used by U.S. and allied forces’ aircraft, ships, and ground vehicles.
Source: DARPA
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Don’t look now, but many of the nation’s states are in deep financial trouble. Pensions around the country have been underfunded, and Ohio is one of the worst offenders. By 2037, there’s only a 25% chance Ohio’s fire fighters and police officers will have their pensions fulfilled by the current system. Economists Erick Elder and David Mitchell have detailed the poor condition of Ohio’s pension system in a detailed report. The Mercatus Center outlines their work, saying:
Ohio’s largest pension plans are at risk of falling significantly short on their obligations to hundreds of thousands of Ohioans. In fact, Ohio ranks ahead of only Mississippi in terms of the level of unfunded liabilities relative to the size of the state’s income.
Despite having assets of more than $150 billion, some estimates show that Ohio needs to increase pension funding by at least $275 billion to be fully funded—that’s almost $25,000 per Ohio citizen. If lawmakers fail to make the decision about how to close the gap now, future generations will bear the burden of higher taxes, reduced government services, or even reduced benefits.
Using Ohio government data, economists Erick M. Elder and David Mitchell ran 100,000 simulations of likely investment returns for each pension. They find that Ohio’s pensions have sufficient assets to pay promised benefits in the next five years, but the probability that assets will be sufficient declines very rapidly thereafter.
Is your state in a similar fix? Check out the map below, created by the Mercatus Center, to see if you live in a state with pension Armageddon on its way.
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With the recent passage of a Right to Work law in Kentucky, Illinois is nearly surrounded by states with such laws. Only Missouri, far away from Chicago, the industrial heart of Illinois, remains a union state. With at least five Right to Work bills working their way through the Missouri legislature and headed toward the state’s newly elected Republican governor, it’s likely that soon Illinois will be an anti-business island in a sea of pro-business states. Additionally, three of Illinois’ neighboring states have lower corporate income tax rates. Today Illinois demands 7.75% from its corporations, while Indiana (6.5%), Kentucky (6%) and Missouri (6.25%) ask for less.
Such a disparity in the business climate has created what might become a bipartisan push in Illinois to create a better business climate in the state. While passing a Right to Work law is probably impossible, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan (D), has proposed “aggressive economic reforms.” Madigan even went so far as to suggest cutting the corporate tax rate by 50%. Working with Republican governor Bruce Rauner on such a proposal could produce a positive, bipartisan outcome in a state that desperately needs it. The Wall Street Journal reports further:
One way to do that, he suggested, is by “cutting the corporate income tax by at least 50 percent. This would allow businesses to spend more of their resources on creating jobs and improving our economy.” Knock us over with a feather. As recently as 2011 Illinois Democrats insisted on raising the state corporate income tax by 46% to a top rate of 7%. The rate fell back to 5.25% in 2015 but Democrats had been holding out for another tax increase. They lost their veto-proof majority in the House in November, however, and Mr. Madigan may now believe that simply blocking Mr. Rauner’s agenda isn’t enough.
Nearby Kentucky passed a right-to-work law last week and Missouri is expected to take up similar legislation in coming weeks. Mr. Madigan is surely mindful that this would leave Illinois, a non-right-to-work state, as an island with undesirable labor laws surrounded by states including Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin that provide more worker choice and business flexibility.
The help can’t come soon enough. Illinois and the City of Chicago continue to drown in public pension debt and relatively slow growth. In an act of desperation, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel asked Moody’s in a December letter released this week to withdraw its rating of the city’s debt that has fallen to junk status. Maybe Mr. Madigan can help.
Read more here.
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 Daniel Larison, opining at The American Conservative lays out a pretty good case against a Tillerson confirmation for Secretary of State.
One of the main assumptions that almost everyone has made about Tillerson’s nomination to be Secretary of State is that he would be inclined to improve relations with Russia. Some of his answers from his confirmation hearing today call that assumption into question:
It could be that Tillerson was just telling committee members what they wanted to hear, or he may have been posturing as a hard-liner in an attempt to overcompensate for his past business dealings, but it seems more likely that Tillerson was never all that interested in better relations with Moscow. If so many hawkish Republicans have vouched for him, it makes more sense that he sees the world in much the same way they do.
That is what makes his support for arming Ukraine seem especially significant. Sending arms to Ukraine is a bad idea now, and it was just as bad back in 2014. If Tillerson thinks the U.S. should have done that then, that doesn’t reflect well on his judgment, and it bodes ill for future U.S. policy on Ukraine and Russia. Even if he was mostly pandering to hard-liners on the committee, that tells us that he isn’t going to push back very hard against hawks that want more confrontational policies.
Read more here.
FULL: Secretary of State Nominee Rex Tillerson Testifies at Confirmation Hearing (1/11/2017)
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 From former CIA bin Laden unit chief Michael Scheuer:
It is time to relax and let the Democrats and their war-loving Neocon, Republican, and Israel-First friends go piss up a rope. They are as mangy a lot of miscreant mongrels as the republic has ever seen, and they will remain so even as their head hound travels to his beloved Chicago, a city where the strict gun laws he adores have obviously created an utterly non-violent Utopia.
For the rest of us, it is time to let Mr. Trump have his at-bats and see if he can begin to keep his promises to undo the damage Obama-and-crew intentionally inflicted on this country, by implementing policies to fix the economy and applying a reliable refusal to intervene in other peoples’ wars, politics, and societies. As that process unfolds, we must do what can be done to keep Mr. Trump up to mark, but we can also hope that either Assange or Putin — or even the Clapper-McCain creation of that ace and dreadful evildoer “Putsange” — will publish all of the classified e-mails from Hillary’s server. Putin no longer can use the e-mails to blackmail “President” Clinton, and Assange probably wants to finish what he started. If either or both do the necessary, Americans will read the e-mails and know they have been far better and more fully informed by the nation’s foes, than they ever would have been by their own government.
Read more here.
Dr. Michael Scheuer: The Media Is Trying To Make President-Elect Trump An Illegitimate Candidate
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 It was a good opening week for president-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet nominations, writes Peggy Noonan in the WSJ.
Secretary of Defense: Gen. James N. Mattis
William Cohen, the former Republican senator who became Bill Clinton ’s secretary of defense, introduced and endorsed Gen. James N. Mattis, Donald Trump ’s nominee as defense chief, to the Senate Armed Services Committee. “He has the nickname of ‘Mad Dog’—it’s a misnomer,” Mr. Cohen said. “It should be Braveheart.”
Secretary of State: Rex Tillerson
(Mr. Tillerson) came across as distinguished, calm, informed. In intense questioning, Sen. Marco Rubio was strangely, yippily hostile. “Is Vladimir Putin a war criminal?” Mr. Rubio pressed. “I would not use that term,” Mr. Tillerson replied, blandly, but with an expression that allowed you to imagine a thought bubble: You can mess with me, son, but it won’t end well for you. In the end, Mr. Rubio did Mr. Tillerson no harm and himself no good. A few hours in, with his accent and cool demeanor, I realized who Mr. Tillerson was reminding me of: former Secretary of State James Baker.
Attorney General: Jeff Sessions
(Mr. Sessions) was cuffed about in his sessions but emerged relatively unscathed.
CIA Head: Rep. Mike Pompeo,
(Mr. Pompeo) was creditable, composed, informed.
Department of Homeland Security: Gen. John Kelly,
(Gen. Kelly) was introduced by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who said: “I would trust him with my life.”
What is heartening, each of Donald Trump’s nominees indicate they would have no problem disagreeing with the incoming president. Mr. Trump’s seems to be surrounding himself with respectful, independent professionals, which “may reassure some of the president-elect’s foes without putting off most of his supporters.” Read more from Ms. Noonan here.
James Mattis confirmation hearing
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In America, other than coma patients and Appalachian hermits, pretty much everyone knows who the president is. That’s a function of how much power the president has come to wield, and of what a central position the office holds symbolically. But there is a country where many people don’t even know who their president is because decisions are made a the local level as often as possible. That country is Switzerland, long known for its neutrality, is also a bastion of federalism. The Foundation for Economic Education explains below how, after being invaded by the French who attempted to establish a centralized government, the Swiss resisted and developed their own, unique and effective form of government.
After decades of struggles over the centralization of power, a civil war ended the everlasting Swiss question of the legitimacy of a federal government. The Sonderbund War started in 1847 and was a fight between seven conservative and Catholic cantons who opposed the centralization of power and rebelled against the Confederation which had been in place since 1814. What followed was probably one of the least spectacular wars in world history: the federal army had lost 78 men and had 260 wounded. The Sonderbund conspiracy dissolved and Switzerland became the state it is today in 1848.
Think about this, the Swiss fight (which was marked by its incredible lack of violence in comparison to others) was purely over the rejection of the centralization of power, the skepticism of the responsibilities that a large entity has, while, mind you, we’re only talking about a country of 16,000 square miles. The result is a relatively neutral state which maintains a greater amount of freedom and prosperity than most European nations.
The Federal Council, Impotent by Design
The executive of the federal multi-party directorial republic is a body called the Federal Council. It is composed of 7 members (each one responsible for one of the seven departments in Switzerland) who are voted into their position by both chambers of the Federal Assembly. Their presidency and vice-presidency is rotating each year, their mandate is four years. The current council is composed of 2 social democrats, 2 center-right conservatives, 2 national conservatives, and one Christian-democrat (Doris Leuthard, who’s the current president).
Read more here.
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 Repeal of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act is not going to happen overnight, writes Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute. Changes will be small and incremental. So what’s in store for American consumers, patients, doctors, hospitals, insurers, businesses and taxpayers? Mr. Tanner explains:
1. More choices for buying insurance
“You may have to pay more to pay more for insurance that covers some providers and conditions, but you’ll also be able to buy cheaper, less-comprehensive insurance if you want to.”
2. Less wide-ranging — and expensive — “essential benefits package”
“Repeal will mean more of an a la carte approach to insurance, based on individual consumer preference. … President Trump can take action by executive order to repeal some of the requirements that President Obama included.”
3. The reviled individual mandate? Gone
“People will even have the choice not to buy insurance at all … Going without insurance may not necessarily be a wise choice, but it does re-establish a fundamental limit to state power over the individual. And it allows young and healthy people to purchase low-cost catastrophic coverage that makes much more sense for them.”
4. Shop for insurance across state lines
“Allowing consumers to shop across state lines will force some much-needed competition into the insurance market. It will also help prevent New York regulators from recreating the failures of ObamaCare at the state level.”
5. Expansion of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs)
“HSAs will most likely allow much larger tax-free contributions to these accounts, and allow them to be used for more health-related expenses, including insurance premiums. That would mean that you — not your boss — would be able to choose your insurance plan.”
6. More Portability for Health Insurance
Consumers could use their HSA to pay premiums, which will mean they’ll be less likely to lose insurance coverage when changing or losing jobs.
According to Mr. Tanner, “most consumers will find themselves with more and better insurance choices after ObamaCare is repealed.”
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 Writing at the The American Conservative, Pat Buchanan explains to Americans the common denominator between Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan.
Since World War II, the two men who have most terrified this city by winning the presidency are Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.
And they have much in common.
Both came out of the popular culture, Reagan out of Hollywood, Trump out of a successful reality TV show. Both possessed the gifts of showmen — extraordinarily valuable political assets in a television age that deals cruelly with the uncharismatic.
Both became instruments of insurgencies out to overthrow the establishment of the party whose nomination they were seeking.
Reagan emerged as the champion of the postwar conservatism that had captured the Republican Party with Barry Goldwater’s nomination in 1964. His victory in 1980 came at the apogee of conservative power.
The populism that enabled Trump to crush 16 Republican rivals and put him over the top in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan had also arisen a decade and a half before — in the 1990s.
A decisive advantage Reagan and Trump both enjoyed is that in their decisive years, the establishments of both parties were seen as having failed the nation.
What is the common denominator of both the Reagan landslide of 1980 and Trump’s victory?
Both candidates appealed to American nationalism.
Read more here.
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