Valuation Dashboard: Technology And Telecom – Update – Seeking Alpha

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This article series provides a monthly dashboard of industries in each sector of the GICS classification. It compares valuation and quality factors relative to their historical averages in each industry.

Relative to their historical averages, Semiconductors look slightly undervalued and Communication Equipment very close to fair price. IT Services, Hardware and Electronic Equipment seem moderately overvalued. Internet, Software and Telecommunications are overpriced by more than 30% regarding my metrics. All IT and Telecom industries are better than their historical averages in profitability (measured by median ROE).

Since last month:

P/E has improved in IT services, Communication/Electronic Equipment, Semiconductors, and Diversified Telecom, and deteriorated in Hardware, Internet, and Wireless Telecom.

P/S has improved in IT services, Communication/Electronic Equipment, and Hardware, and deteriorated in Semiconductors and Telecom.

P/FCF has improved in Electronic Equipment, and deteriorated in Internet, Communication Equipment, and Telecom.

ROE has improved in Internet and Telecom, and deteriorated in Hardware.

The Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLK) has outperformed the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by about 1.5%.

On this period, the 5 best performing S&P 500 Tech or Telecom stocks are Apple (AAPL), Automatic Data Processing Inc. (ADP), Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ), and Xerox Corp. (XRX).

The stocks listed below are in the S&P 1500 index and cheaper than their respective industry factor for Price/Earnings, Price/Sales and Price/Free Cash Flow. The 10 companies with the highest Return on Equity are kept in the final selection.

This strategy rebalanced monthly has an annualized return about 12.76% in a 17-year simulation. The sector ETF XLK has an annualized return of only 2.83% on the same period. I update every month 8 lists like this one covering all sectors (some sectors are grouped). The 8 lists together have returned about 25% in 2016. If you want to stay informed of updates, click "Follow" at the top of this page. My Marketplace Subscribers have an early access to the stock lists before they are published in free-access articles. Past performance is not a guarantee of future result. This is not investment advice. Do your own research before buying.

Plantronics Inc. (PLT)

COMMEQUIP

Seagate Technology Plc (STX)

COMPUTER

Bel Fuse Inc. (BELFB)

ELECTREQUIP

Cirrus Logic Inc. (CRUS)

SEMIANDEQUIP

SolarEdge Technologies Inc. (SEDG)

SEMIANDEQUIP

Citrix Systems Inc. (CTXS)

SOFTW

CSRA Inc. (CSRA)

TECHSVCE

MAXIMUS Inc. (MMS)

TECHSVCE

NeuStar Inc. (NSR)

TECHSVCE

Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC)

TECHSVCE

I take 4 aggregate industry factors provided by portfolio123: Price/Earnings (P/E), Price to sales (P/S), Price to free cash flow (P/FCF), and Return on Equity (ROE). My choice has been justified here and here. Their calculation aims at limiting the influence of outliers and large caps. They are reference values for stock picking, not for capital-weighted indices.

For each factor I calculate the difference with its own historical average: to the average for valuation ratios, from the average for ROE, so that the higher is always the better. The difference is measured in percentage for valuation ratios, not for ROE (already in percentage).

The next table reports the 4 industry factors. There are 3 columns for each factor: the current value, the average (Avg) between January 1999 and October 2015 taken as an arbitrary reference of fair valuation, and the difference explained above (D-xxx).

P/E

Avg

D- P/E

P/S

Avg

D- P/S

P/FCF

Avg

D- P/FCF

ROE

Avg

D-ROE

Internet

53.99

38.33

-40.86%

4.01

2.93

-36.86%

37.55

29.72

-26.35%

-18.06

-26.83

8.77

IT Services

28.67

23.34

-22.84%

1.6

1.16

-37.93%

21.7

18.68

-16.17%

6.26

2.42

3.84

Software

52.77

33.79

-56.17%

4.21

2.81

-49.82%

35.24

23.95

-47.14%

-5.55

-8.17

2.62

Communications Equipt

28.63

28.48

-0.53%

1.67

1.61

-3.73%

28.54

24.1

-18.42%

-1.22

-9.61

8.39

Computers/Peripherals

25.55

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Valuation Dashboard: Technology And Telecom - Update - Seeking Alpha

Target acquires delivery technology firm, beefs up grocery team – Minneapolis Star Tribune

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Matt Rourke, Associated Press Target acquired a San Francisco delivery technology firm, Grand Junction, as the race to offer speedier service intensifies.

Target Corp. began to reveal more Monday about how it plans to address two key question marks hanging over it: how it will compete with Amazon on delivery and how it plans to fix its grocery department.

In response to the first, the Minneapolis-based retailer announced the acquisition of Grand Junction, a 13-employee firm in San Francisco, to help it expand its same-day delivery and other supply-chain capabilities. As for the second, it has hired two senior grocery leaders, one from Walmart and one from General Mills, to focus on improving its selection of prepared foods as well as its roster of private-label brands that now include Archer Farms and Market Pantry.

The flurry of announcements came as Target is preparing to report its second-quarter results on Wednesday. While the company's sales have been declining for a year, Target raised its guidance last month, saying it now expects moderately positive sales for the May-to-July quarter instead of a single-digit drop.

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Target acquires delivery technology firm, beefs up grocery team - Minneapolis Star Tribune

Matt Hughes’ Progress After Coma ‘Nothing Short of a Miracle,’ Says Friend – Bleacher Report

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Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Zuffa LLC/Getty Images

UFC Hall of FamerMatt Hughes' recovery progress after his accident in June is "nothing short of a miracle," according to his friendTony Zucca.

Zucca posted a photo of himself and theformer UFC welterweight championon Instagram on Sunday as Hughes continues his recovery after his truck collided with atrain nearHillsboro, Illinois, less than two months ago:

PerESPN, Hughes, 43, wasin a coma until last month but suffered no broken bones or internal injuries after colliding with the train.

According to MMA Fighting'sMarc Raimondi, he has beenat HSHS St. John's Hospital in Springfield, Illinois, since the collision.

TheHillsboro-born Hughes retired from the UFC in 2013, with his final fight in 2011 when he was knocked out byJosh Koscheckat UFC 135.

He bowed out of MMA with a 45-9 professional record and having held the UFC welterweight title for two lengthy stints between 2001 and 2006.

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Matt Hughes' Progress After Coma 'Nothing Short of a Miracle,' Says Friend - Bleacher Report

Attorney assigned to represent Fields is plaintiff in statue removal suit – The Daily Progress

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A Charlottesville defense attorney assigned to represent the man accused of murder in the death of an Albemarle County woman by ramming his car into a crowd protesting Saturdays white nationalist rally is a former Republican candidate for the City Council and a plaintiff in the lawsuit against the city regarding the removal of Confederate statues.

James Alex Fields Jr., 20, of Maumee, Ohio, is being held at the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail without bond until he can meet with an attorney.

Fields is charged with second-degree murder in the death of Heather Heyer, 32, three counts of malicious wounding and one count of hit-and-run resulting in death.

Charlottesville General District Judge Robert H. Downer Jr. appointed Charles L. Buddy Weber to represent Fields, who said he made about $1,300 a month as a security guard and could not afford an attorney.

You have no ties to the community, so at this time you will not have bond until you have an attorney and they can come to this court regarding a bond, Downer told Fields, who appeared via video feed from jail.

Downer indicated that Weber was unaware of the appointment.

I do not know if Mr. Weber has a conflict or if he is willing to represent you.

Will Lyster, a friend of Weber, said the attorney is on a hiking trip and does not have cellphone service. He is expected to return next week.

Downer said a member of the Charlottesville Public Defenders Office has a conflict of interest with Fields regarding the incident and that the office could not represent Fields. He then appointed Weber, a local defense attorney who is on a list of local public defenders, to represent Fields.

Downer set the next bond hearing for Fields for Aug. 25.

Weber, a former chairman of the city Republican Party, is one of 13 plaintiffs who have sued the Charlottesville City Council for its decision to remove the statue of Robert E. Lee from the park that once bore the Confederate generals name. The park has since been renamed Emancipation Park.

The park was the site of Saturdays Unite the Right rally, which brought several white supremacist and white nationalist groups to the park, as well large crowds of counter-protesters. The rally erupted in violence between the groups before it could start, however. Police declared an unlawful assembly and cleared the park after hundreds of people beat each other with sticks and fists, sprayed each other with pepper spray and hurled makeshift missiles.

After the rally, a car plowed into a crowd of about 100 counter-protesters marching down a Downtown Mall cross street and slammed into other cars that had stopped for the protesters. Heyer was killed in the crash, and 19 others were injured.

The car backed up on Fourth Street and sped away. Fields was later arrested.

As Fields Monday hearing was ending, Matthew Heimbach, leader of the white nationalist Traditionalist Worker Party, began shouting accusations that counter-protesters caused Saturdays violence. He was quickly surrounded by television crews and news reporters who were milling about the courthouse, awaiting Downers ruling.

Bystanders then joined the throng, drowning the mans words by chanting Nazi go home until police whisked him safely away from the growing crowd.

The Associated Press on Monday reported that police records from Florence, Kentucky, show Fields mother had called police in 2011, reporting that Fields stood behind her wheelchair wielding a 12-inch knife.

In a 2010 incident, his mother reported that Fields struck her on the head and locked her in the bathroom after she told him to stop playing video games. She told officers Fields was on medication to control his temper.

A former teacher told The Washington Post that Fields espoused Nazi ideals in high school.

Send news tips to news@dailyprogress.com, call (434) 978-7264, tweet us @DailyProgress or send us a Facebook message here.

Ned Oliver of the Richmond Times-Dispatch contributed to this report.

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Attorney assigned to represent Fields is plaintiff in statue removal suit - The Daily Progress

Tiemoue Bakayoko continues recovery progress in Chelsea training – We Ain’t Got No History

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Tiemoue Bakayoko making an instant recovery from his knee injury and coming up to speed in zero time in Contes system would be a more than welcome boon ahead of Sundays trip to Wembley to play Spurs and try to avoid an 0-2 start to the season.

Unfortunately, thats a highly unlikely scenario Bakayoko playing, not the 0-2 start even after a few pictures of him training were shared on Snapchat by his brother. Without confirmation by Chelsea in their nightly training ground report (they only say Tiemoues making progress, as are Hazard and Pedro), we have to assume this is just light training alongside other injured players like, for example, Baba Rahman. (Plus, would a family member be even allowed at first-team training?)

These snaps are quite blurry, but that could in fact be Baba in the orange bib.

That said, other enterprising fans contacted Tiemoues brother on Snapchat, and he seems to be under the impression that there is a chance Tiemoue plays against Spurs on Sunday. Again, that seems highly optimistic and quite unlikely, but were likely to receive more solid confirmation one way or another later this week.

Yes, it has come to this.

As it stands, it will either be David Luiz or Charly Musonda Jr who will have to partner Kante in midfield, unless Conte (or the Chelsea Board) have something incredibly surprising and never before seen at Chelsea up their sleeves.

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Tiemoue Bakayoko continues recovery progress in Chelsea training - We Ain't Got No History

Italy OKs ambassador for Cairo, cites murder probe progress – ABC News

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Italy is letting its ambassador take up his post in Cairo, citing on Monday progress by Egypt in the investigation of the 2016 torture death of an Italian scholar that had weighed on diplomatic ties.

The move does not mean Italy intends to ease the pressure on Egyptian authorities to bring Giulio Regeni's killers to justice, Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano said. The ambassador will bear a letter asserting the Italian government's determination to discover the truth about the murder, Alfano said.

Ambassador Giampaolo Cantini "will have the task of contributing, via contacts with Egyptian authorities, toward reinforcing judicial cooperation, and, as a consequence, the search for the truth," Alfano said in a statement.

Regeni was a Cambridge University doctoral student researching labor movements in Egypt when he was abducted in Cairo in January 2016. His body was found along a Cairo road a few days later bearing marks of extensive torture.

Italian news agency ANSA said Italian and Egyptian prosecutors issued a joint statement pledging to find the "truth and all the circumstances that led to the abduction, torture and death."

Italian state TV said Egypt has sent Italian prosecutors transcripts of fresh questioning of Egyptian police officers who had a role in investigating Regini's death. Egypt also assured Italy it would provide video surveillance footage from cameras at the Cairo subway stop where Regeni was known to have been last seen alive.

In April 2016, the then-ambassador was recalled to Italy for consultations, to highlight the Italian government's frustration with Egyptian investigators. Since then, that ambassador was assigned elsewhere, and the embassy in Cairo awaited its ambassador.

Regeni disappeared on a day Cairo police were on a tense watch for protests on the fifth anniversary of the 2011 popular uprising.

After his body was discovered, Egyptian authorities offered various explanations, including an assertion that Regeni had been hit by a vehicle. Later, they said he was a victim of a robbery.

Egypt is considered a key ally both in international efforts to combat Islamist-terrorism as well as efforts to stabilize neighbor Libya, a base for human traffickers who have sent hundreds of thousands of migrants by sea toward Italy in the last few years.

In a statement, Alfano dismissed any suggestion that Italy's desire to slow the flow of migrants across the Mediterranean Sea had triggered dispatching the ambassador to Cairo.

"That Egypt is an inescapable interlocutor on issues of primary importance for Italy, like the stabilization of Libya and the fight against terrorism, doesn't signify that Italy intends to turn the page in the search for truth in Giulio Regeni's murder," the minister said.

Regeni's family has been outspoken in demanding that Italy insist on getting the truth from Egypt. His mother has said her son's face was so badly pummeled the only facial feature she could recognize was the tip of his nose.

Italian state TV said Monday night the family was indignant that the ambassador was allowed to go to Cairo.

Frances D'Emilio on twitter: http://www.twitter.com/fdemilio

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Italy OKs ambassador for Cairo, cites murder probe progress - ABC News

The Game of Game of Thrones: season 7, episode 5, Eastwatch – The Verge

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This week in Game of Game of Thrones, your Thronesmaster had to Google knuckle massages and carpal-tunnel risk factors. What Im saying is, too much is happening too quickly on this show, and I can barely write it all down without injuring myself. So lets get right to it, and yes, I would love it if you would tweet any and all home remedies for joint swelling to @verge.

Season 7, episode 5, Eastwatch, has a sad, soggy opening scene: Jaimes closest personal friend berates him while he doggie-paddles around a river in 80 pounds of armor. Bronn not-so-subtly suggests that Jaime is too stupid to live, but he also owes Bronn too much real estate to die right now. (+5 to Bronn for You saw the dragon between you and her and?) The 2017 equivalent of this, I guess, would be dragging a drunk, topless friend off a waterslide and shouting that youre only saving them from themselves so they can complete your Venmo requests.

Unfortunately, this is merely a nihilism aperitif, followed quickly by Daenerys giving an incoherent speech to the remaining Lannister soldiers. Its cobbled together from her greatest hits, including a little bit of season 5s break the wheel speech and season 6s We will leave the world a better place than we found it, which honestly rings a little hollow when the choices shes presenting are Pledge your life to me, or be roasted alive by the dragon sitting right here, being super-loud.

who had season 7, episode 5 in their mad queen pool?

Most of the soldiers who, as youll recall, are just random citizens who probably have no knowledge of any of the political machinations of Westeros go right ahead and bend the knee, but Sams unpleasant father Randyll and okay-but-potentially-fratty brother Dickon refuse.

Tyrion begs Daenerys not to start beheading the lords of every major political family in the country, a grave rhetorical error that only sets her up perfectly for the +10 chilling line: Im not beheading anyone. Whereupon, +50 to the Dragons, +50 to Randyll for dying memorably, and +50 to Dickon for also dying memorably, for no reason, because Daenerys did not even know who he was until he awkwardly shrieked it at her. At this point, we are being asked to worry that Daenerys is just as crazy as her father, whose defining character trait was being crazy. Im not a psychologist, but Im done adjusting my standards for these people just because theyre all objectively beautiful and wear awesome outfits. Yes, if you are willing to burn two guys to a crisp in the full view of like 70 other people, youre out of control and dont need any more responsibilities.

Down in Kings Landing, Jaime comes back from a short trip to war and catches Cersei up on a lot: Olenna murdered Joffrey, the Dothraki are much better at cutting through armor than one might guess, and dragons are extremely scary IRL. He doesnt think they can beat Daenerys, but what hes forgetting is that Cersei does not care: We fight and die or we submit and die. I know my choice. A soldier should know his. +10 to Cersei, outwardly for this line, but in my heart, its for the outfit. She is the only person moving this civilization into the future, no matter what else you want to say about her.

On Dragonstone, as a special treat to me, director Matt Shakman gives us five minutes of Daenerys making eyes at Jon Snow while he pets Drogons face. She doesnt mention to her crush that she just incinerated a father-son duo in a nearly shot-for-shot remake of the execution of Rickard and Brandon Stark, but she does tell him, with her eyes, Oh heyyyy boy. Again I ask, when will these two kiss already?

But against all odds, Daenerys is only the second most thirsty-looking blonde in this scene. Right in the middle of some devastating tension between Danys eyeballs and Jons jawline, Jorah shows up in an elegant silk cape to say that hes cured, hes back in Daenerys service (+25), and hes still totally obsessed with her. (Imagine if your only option for impressing your crush was changing the fabric of your cape.) I dont care about Jorahs love feelings, but here is a subtle and critically important Jon forehead-tendon moment that I took the time to GIF:

Yes, The Verge is a full-time shipping blog now, and I dare you to do something about it. Unless youre my boss or Bran, who gets +50 magic points for warging into a raven and seeing the Night Kings baby blues moving ever closer to the Wall youre powerless. And if youre my boss, well, please accept my half-apology for continually taunting the readers of this column. Im out of control, and I dont need any more responsibilities!

Anyway, Bran sends a raven to the Citadel, where a roomful of old white guys agree they could write to every army in Westeros and solve the White Walker problem right this second, but they dont particularly want to, because the whole thing might be a prank. This is the point in the latest season of HBOs Girls where idealist and intellectual Samwell Tarly becomes completely disillusioned with the politics of academia, yells at everyone in the room, and stomps out. You know, sometimes I think this is just a show about young men having uninteresting formative experiences. At other times, I think its about reminding me of political realities Id rather not think about on a Sunday night.

please accept that i have to talk about kissing in every recap

At other other times, like when Tyrion and Varys are dishing about their unhinged boss over a few glasses of wine (+5 each), I think its a show about getting drunk and making terrible plans, and thats why I keep watching it. After Varys gives a long, melodramatic speech about how he and Tyrion are both complicit in whatever fire-murders Daenerys commits, he whips out Brans letter to Jon. The White Walker problem, according to the letter, is even more urgent than it was last week or the week before, when Jon was already running around trying to convince everyone that it was as urgent as it could possibly be. He needs to recalibrate his DEFCON protocol. In the meantime, Tyrion has a plan: Jorah and Jon will, I am not kidding, go get a White Walker or wight and bring it to Kings Landing to show to Cersei as proof that she should just lay off and let them deal with the Could Not Possibly Be More Urgent Until Its A Little More Urgent Next Week zombie issue. Inhibitions lowered, Varys shoots the plan out of the sky (+5), saying, Anything you bring back will be useless unless Cersei grants us an audience and somehow decides not to murder us.

So Davos, the Onion Knight, the former smuggler who hasnt talked about his missing smuggler fingers in a few episodes, is going to smuggle Tyrion into the city for a meeting with Jaime first. I love this Oceans Eleven plan! But if I had to pick out a single early-2000s Claires accessory to indicate how logical, curated, and cost-effective this shows various plots have become, it would be the broach Daenerys is wearing when she finds out Jon Snow is leaving her alone on this island to not get kissed by him.

Up in Winterfell, there is only more anxiety-inducing drama. Sansa calls a meeting of the Northern lords where she doesnt talk about anything, and instead just allows everyone to yell general thoughts about how Jon abandoned them and how she should be in charge forever. Arya watches this and then gives her a lot of crap about how shes sleeping in their parents bedroom (+10 for You always liked nice things) and secretly wants to be queen (+10 for Youre thinking it right now). Game of Thrones often presents any acquisition of skill as a personality trade-off: Bran can see all of history and now he has no empathy, Arya is an awesome assassin and now she has no ability to trust her loved ones. So, in my opinion, its odd that anyone is still questioning Sansa when she is the only person who has managed to acquire political savvy, military know-how, and incredible sartorial instincts without losing her soul. Arya, please shut up and mind your own business. Youre 14.

Back in Kings Landing, Bronn tricks Jaime into meeting with Tyrion, and they have a sort of boring conversation about whether Tyrion murdering their father Tywin was warranted. Then Cersei and Jaime have a second, more boring conversation about whether she should meet with Daenerys to talk about peace, love, and White Walkers. The votes are: Jaime yea, Cersei nay. So its a no. What a surprise. More importantly, this is a good opportunity for her to tell him that she is pregnant. Were going to go with +15 each for the tiny incest baby, even though I sort of think this is a lie and a ruthless emotional manipulation likely to end in disaster.

please welcome clovis, another possible rightful heir to the iron throne

Thats a bummer, but Im excited to describe the bonkers B-plot unfurling simultaneously in Kings Landing. Here we go: Davos goes to find Robert Baratheons bastard son Gendry, who we havent seen since he floated away in a rowboat in season 3. Apparently he was just hanging out, making armor. Okay! Davos tells Gendry, who looks terrible and has a buzzcut now, Nothing fucks you harder than time. Gross, but +5. The thrill of the smuggle makes Davos act about 12 years old, and in the space of five minutes, he also gives Gendry the hilarious fake name Clovis, delivers an improvised and revolting monologue about the aphrodisiac properties of fermented crab (+5 for a chainmail joke I wont repeat), and does a spot-on impression of my great aunt, mumbling Nobody mind me. All Ive ever done is live to a ripe old age. (+5) Man, give this guy another +5 for whatever I missed, because he was on fire.

And +20 to Gendry for returning in style and smashing two Gold Cloaks heads with a sledgehammer. Hes so excited to be included in the weekly spectacle of Game of Thrones again after four years of being left out hes going absolutely wild. This is fun, but not quite motivation enough for me to give points to Gendry or Jon for meeting and bonding over recollections of the dead dynamic duo Ned Stark and Robert Baratheon. I am really tired of watching boys become friends for vague, whimsical reasons.

To wrap up the plot-onslaught, we get back-to-back textbook examples of what AP English teachers call dramatic irony. First, Gilly reads aloud to Sam from one of the old journals the Archmaester is forcing him to archive. Shes cheerfully struggling through a story about how Prince Rhaegar was given an annulment and then remarried to someone (wink!) in a secret ceremony in Dorne, while Sam is throwing a tantrum about how no one is letting him read any of the important books full of good secrets. Then he quits college. Did you yell at your TV? I didnt, but only out of deference to my cat Ghost, who finds it painful to acknowledge this program ever since his namesake was entirely written out of it. Good lord, Sam.

Meanwhile, in Winterfell, Littlefinger stages fishy-looking conversations with Alys Karstark, Robett Glover, and Yohn Royce. He easily tricks Arya into thinking hes up to something, leading her to a copy of an old letter in which Sansa tells Robb that Ned is guilty of treason and begs him to surrender to the Lannisters. If Arya had a fully developed brain, she would realize that Sansa wrote this under coercion, but again, shes 14. Her teenage bullshit is going to get everyone in some serious trouble.

The final scene of this episode is a great reminder that Game of Thrones has been going on forever and involves so many interlocking friend groups, unlikely pairings, and petty grudges that theres no way you can possibly keep track of them in your one human brain. At the Wall, Jon recognizes The Hound from seeing him at Winterfell one time, seven years ago. Jorah recognizes Thoros. Gendry recognizes Beric and Thoros, whom he does not like. Tormund turns to Jorah like Youre a Mormont? The Hound gets +5 for interrupting Beric Dondarrions speech about fate and friendship with For fucks sake, will you shut your hole? and whoever had the idea for this meet-up gets a personal letter from me, accompanied by an Edible Arrangement. Please DM.

What a hilarious team of total randos, and what a way to sell me again on the dragon show. Heres +5 to Tormund for asking which queen they need to prove the existence of White Walkers to (The one with dragons or the one who fucks her brother?), and +5 to Thoros for a hearty swig of what I hope was a protein shake, as its going to be rough from here on out. Someone could send one of Daenerys dragons to kill all the White Walkers in about 10 minutes, but lets collaborate to fetch a zombie instead. I dont care about HBOs financial obligation to drag the most improbably popular fantasy program in history out for as long as possible, I just love a ragtag crew.

The magic of Game of Thrones is that, while watching it, I regularly spend 55 minutes thinking, What has happened? This is a complete mess and disaster, and then five thinking, This has been worth it. I am amped up and will never die. And then I do it all again the next week. At least for the next two weeks. After that, well see you in 2018, or maybe 2019.

To the Old Gods and the New, please protect our sweet boys.

Top scorer: Arya, 20

Special team: The Royal Army, 0

Top scorer: Daenerys Targaryen, 10

Special team: The Dothraki, 0

Top scorer: N/A

Special team: The Unsullied, 0

Top scorer: Jaime Lannister, 15

Special team: The White Walkers, 0

Top scorer: Varys, 10

Special team: Dragons, 50

Top scorer: Randyll Tarly, 50

Special team: The Wights, 0

Top scorer: N/A

Special team: Wildlings, 0

Top scorer: Bran Stark, 50

Special team: Brotherhood without Banners, 0

Top scorer: Davos Seaworth, 20

Special team: The Lord of Light, 0

Top scorer: N/A

Special team: The Nights Watch, 0

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The Game of Game of Thrones: season 7, episode 5, Eastwatch - The Verge

Local Rappers Stand Out While Mike Jones Keeps Fans Waiting – Houston Press

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Monday, August 14, 2017 at 9:04 a.m.

Doeman

Photo by Marco Torres

While Mike Jones was taking his sweet time backstage Saturday night, the HOU's Next rappers were busy revving up the House of Blues crowd with a catalog of fire songs dashed with local love.

The HOU's Next crew represents the fledgling future of the local rap scene. These artists, not beholden to established labels or othermusic-industry snares, have the freedom to stretch the boundaries of what rap can be. Their tracks, forged in a world flush with anomie, are a far cry from the easy hedonism that defined the ascendancy of artists like headliner Mike Jones; they're sharp, they're critical, and they're self-aware in a way that an era of political and social unrest demands. Simply put, HOU's Next is making the rap both the city and the world needs right now. They're drawing an audience and raising eyebrows in a way the old guard of Houston rap can no longer do.

Genesis Blu, the "head-fucking hen" of the Houston rap scene, approached her portion of the HOU's Next set with her signature lyricism, humility and positivity. Songs like "Have it All" fed the crowd a smart message that refused despair and embraced possibility; with the lines "you can never check my mic/ I'm not your stereotype/ No limits and no ceilings/ I'm about that life," Genesis simultaneously confronted the barriers that entrap women in the world of hip hop without letting them hold her back. She kept on teaching with the fist-pumping anthem "Bluming Season" delivered a smooth, vintage flow woven into its story of personal growth.

Genesis Blu

Photo by Marco Torres

Though the artist usually resists music that's overtly sexual, Genesis cut loose with some older tracks that embraced her sultrier side. The song "Run it Back," an old-school narrative-style rap of sexual awakening, oozed into the mike with steamy innuendo, and the song "No Cuddlin'" popped back at a lousy ex-lover with a whole lot of side-eye. Genesis Blu's willingness to venture into a territory that she regularly forecloses demonstrated just how safe and supportive the House of Blues show was.

While the DJ got the crowd moving to Lil Keke's classic "Southside," T2 the Ghetto Hippie was waiting in the wings for his set. T2 fashions himself as the court jester of Houston rap. Dressed in a faded flannel shirt and pineapple pants (yes, pineapple pants), the self-proclaimed leader of the "Good Vibe Tribe" took to the stage with knowing glee, gripping the mike close as he laid into "Double Cups and Taco Trucks." Like any good jester, T2 used his moments of revelry to expose deeper truths; at one point, he proclaimed he "was going to do some cliche rapper shit," and hyped the crowd to make some noise for weed, drank, Houston, and other easy-to-pander-to items.

T2 the Ghetto Hippie

Photo by Marco Torres

By facing the these phony rap platitudes head on, however, T2 shows how he's wise to the cavern of emptiness underneath what audiences easily cheer for. It's that looming emptiness that the artist seeks to fill with his music. When T2 performed the deep and bassy "IDGAF," it was clear from his earnest performance that all his hustle, and his pleading overtures with the audience come together as one, are all done to stave off the desire "to put a piece to my head and make that bitch go bang."

The last HOU'S Next set, featuring Doeman, was a triumph of technical rap mastery. Doeman can freestyle like no other; he's quick and biting, popping into his bars faster than any writer can easily transcribe. His flow, in a word, is vicious, and it demands to be heard. The song "F.W.M.N.," the bitter, menacing diss track to all those who ever doubted the rapper, dropped like a bomb in the middle of House of Blues, unleashing an explosion of cathartic rage amidst its tinkling, horror-movie backbeat. While he might not brand it as such, Doeman's work is intellectual; for every bar that is an elaborate middle finger to the rapper's enemies, there's one that offers thoughtful critique. The line, "You worried about Instagram/I'm worried about the immigrants" showed that Doeman knows he's rapping in a world of injustice that requires a response. Unlike other rappers, Doeman is man enough to make that response.

DJ Baby Roo

Photo by Marco Torres

But what, you might ask, about headliner Mike Jones? The rapper made audiences wait over an hour for his set, starting well past the time his set was supposed to be finished. There's a metaphor hiding in that delay: the clock is striking midnight on the rap of the early aughts. In a world where nuclear attacks can be threatened with casual abandon, where white supremacists can walk the streets without hoods and where protesters can be murdered with impunity, songs like "Still Tippin" just don't resonate. In fact, that seem shamefully trivial in the face of so much turmoil. Houston's up-and-coming rappers have found a way to adapt party aesthetics to the changing world; maybe it's about time they got to take center stage.

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Local Rappers Stand Out While Mike Jones Keeps Fans Waiting - Houston Press

The Wildfires Of Tourism – HuffPost UK

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A couple of years ago I went on a fact-finding visit to Majorca. I had been approached by local people throughout the island, wanting to highlight the problems they were facing from tourism. As you leave Palma Airport, one of the first things you see is a large office block emblazoned with the logo of a major European Tour Operator. Throughout the island, you cannot escape the various logos of travel companies and their sponsorship of public events. Everywhere is a testament to one of the greatest industries on the planet and the logistical success of their operations. I subsequently and perhaps wistfully observed that the island had been colonised by an industry and that it was difficult to see its real possibilities.

This beautiful island however hid and continues to hide some uncomfortable truths. The effect of tourism was and continues to have a profound effect on those who live on the island, from crowded roads, housing, stresses on water supplies, concerns on the sustainability of the coastline and its waters, to the growth of mega-all-inclusive resorts and the very real presence of crime, seducing our young travellers through the industrial-scale operations of bars and clubs, offering hedonism by stealth.

For several years, local people throughout Majorca have been protesting about the lack of attention the authorities have paid to these very real problems, made even more difficult by a major influx of tourists whose choice of destinations have been limited by acts of terror.

Whilst the island, and indeed Spain, enjoys this tourist boom, the pressure-points that local people complain about have become more evident. Their voice has been raised to a crescendo through the actions of a group called Arran. Whilst we can debate the rights and wrongs of their tactics and public statements, the real people who live in and around these tourist centres are still not being heard.

Take for example the words of Almundena Lopez Diaz, a resident of Barcelona, who cites the rise of illegally operating apartments, rising prices for food and drink and a sense that local people are being priced out of Barcelona in favour of the tourist. Despite these problems, she comments that "86.7 per cent of locals see tourism as a positive thing, but many think it needs to be further regulated".

The issue of 'tourist saturation' is however a point that exists closer to home on the Isle of Skye. This pristine island is now receiving calls for help from islanders, to deal with the massive surge in tourist numbers. Holidaymakers are attracted by the 'locations' used by film and television companies and its lost-world atmosphere. Complaints have ranged from clogged roads, pressure on housing, because of the rise of holiday lettings, and up to 30 cruise ships arriving in the small bay of Portree, disgorging their cargo for the next round of island tours. The VisitScotland's Regional Director points out the obvious financial advantages to the local economy but acknowledges that, "I understand these issues. They're very real for people and very immediate, and it does have an impact", supporting a call for solutions.

The respected travel writer Simon Calder however highlights what I have been arguing for some time, that local and national politicians have it within their remit to control the excesses of cruises ships, drunken people, protection of their resources or a 'saturation' of crowds. He argues action could lead to a 'time-shift' of holidaymakers' habits, thereby leading to a more balanced visitor number. Where we perhaps disagree is on the claim that 'tourism is killing Mallorca' - Simon thinks that it has actually revived the island; I hold the view that the patient is on the critical list!

Simon Kettle also highlights the pressure-points in Venice, Dubrovnik, Skye and Barcelona and observes that "We may not be an infestation yet. But we are a problem. Travel can narrow the mind too". Elizabeth Becker astutely observes that "Only governments can handle runaway tourism...without serious and difficult government co-ordination, mayhem can follow".

For the people of Majorca and elsewhere, these are serious issues and in the face of political inaction, the likelihood of further protest is real and likely to capture a political agenda if not negatively affect the travel product. Tourism is however already a major player in the political agenda of the European Union; it takes centre-stage of the Lisbon Treaty, which embodies the ambition that European Tourism is a major growth industry that can lead to economic prosperity.

I understand only too well the pressures of life and work and our desire to get away from it all, but, as consumers, we should start to think about our own travel footprint and about how our presence impacts that local economy. This is a big ask of any consumer because they will not find the answers in any travel brochure or sales-pitch. As we travel into the future, we are all going to have to take responsibility for this 'wildfire' and play our part in delivering a valuable, thoughtful and responsible tourism in partnership with our hosts.

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The Wildfires Of Tourism - HuffPost UK

Kelela – LMK – Baeble Music (blog)

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I think theres something particularly 'Kelela about starting on a somber note;" this is how Kelela introduces her sublime, shape-shifting new EP, and in particular the cavernous tumble of its first song A Message." While the track continually falls to pieces and puts itself back together again, Kelela duets with a disembodied spectre of herself recounting the emotional purgatory of a newly abandoned relationship. Its more than an opening song, it is the moment that launches the narrative arc that is the backbone of the EP, titled Hallucinogen.

Kelela expands, It speaks to the narcotic that is loving someone. It makes you exhilarated, it makes you feel drained, its in your body and it affects you so completely, and thus the record opens with a pair of tracks that conjure the feeling of emerging from an opiate haze and into the light of the EPs middle section. Gomenasai is a stunningly low-slung piece of grime-influenced futurism, with Kelela buoyed by Nguzunguzus MA on production. I think its more honest and realistic to start with the ultimate low, but equally there has to be hope, and this is where Rewind comes in. Co-produced by Kelela/Kingdom/Nugget, Rewind perfectly embodies the breathless euphoria of infatuation. Kelela steers some mutant form of Miami-bass-freestyle-electro to a sweaty basement rave where furtive companions lock eyes across a chaotic dance floor. All The Way Down (prod. By DJ Dahi) follows, and the timid interactions are replaced with an empowered courageous nerve...the decision to go all the way in love again, despite having dealt with heartbreak. By the end of the song Kelelas voice has become a submerged, pitch-shifted blur asking what you wanna do?

Rather than answer her question, the title track brings up many more. Hallucinogen might be the most aptly-titled track you hear this year, a queasy psychedelic odyssey in which Kelela intones like a wordless shaman while the world literally shatters around her. Born out of the same series of sessions with Arca that begat A Message, Kelelas instinctual harmonizing dances around the beat, telling the story of ecstasy through impulse, with sounds and shapes rather than lyrics. The 'reset button has been hit and the glow has faded as a monochromatic chopped-and screwed techno pulse by Gifted & Blessed carries Kelela through the euphoric peak on The High, an indulgent surrender that leads to a restarting of the cycle, then you go straight back into 'A Message from 'The High - from hedonism to heartbreak - its very much a continuum.

Hallucinogen represents a turning point for Kelela, marking only the second release of her ascendant career after the out-of-nowhere runaway success of the Cut 4 Me mixtape that made her name. As an artist Kelela plays a role not unlike that of her longtime fan Bjork, orchestrating the electronic avant-garde in pursuit of her unique vision. Im pulling things out of people to create a culture clash in me. Ive spent so much time synthesizing inside myself to realize the songs.

Kelela developed her approach singing over experimental instrumentals thinking to herself, is there a place for a weird black girl in this music? I had to make sense of these two things inside myself, the color of my voice in all its R&B glory and all the other music that was resonating with me. With this EP, she has made that place pulling the parts together under the umbrella of Kelela, incorporating different voices and inspirations, from Janet to Wiley, from Tamia to Aphex Twin a universe Kelela is building for herself. With her album epic well underway, Kelelas vision of progressive soul music is about to shine very bright. Hallucinogen is a strikingly realized piece that brings that into sharp focus.

Just last week, we talked about Kelela as an artist to watch after she came out with her new single "LMK....

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A few months ago, I touched on my disappointment in the fact that there weren't many rising black artists gaining widespread popularity....

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Kelela - LMK - Baeble Music (blog)

A First-Time Visitor Inhales Stratford’s Theatrical Perfume – New York Times

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That mille-feuille effect is one of the glories of repertory companies like this one, in which members of a resident troupe of actors play two or three different roles a week in a wide variety of productions. But actually, there are few repertory companies like Stratfords; other than the Shaw Festival (also in Ontario, in Niagara-on-the-Lake) and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Ore., this type of theater has mostly vanished, a victim of its own costs and complications.

Stratford is by far the largest survivor, this year employing a company of 130 actors (and 420 other artists) to mount 14 shows in a season that runs from April through October. Along with Bakkhai and Twelfth Night, I saw Timon of Athens and Guys and Dolls, all in three days. That sampling, with its interplay of Shakespeare, an older classic and a big musical, is reasonably representative, even if I missed the new commissions, modern works and family programs that usually round out the mix.

Four was enough: If no show I saw surpasses its best-ever incarnation, each is strong enough to make a lasting impression. In that regard, the Guys and Dolls (through Oct. 29) is typical. The latest in a series of musicals recently directed and choreographed for Stratford by Donna Feore, it delivers all the joys of that nearly perfect book and score, here using the excellent 1992 Broadway version (with a 19-player orchestra) as the template. The central quartet of actors are engaging and colorful, though among the leading men there is a slight sense of slumming. Not every Nathan Detroit (Sean Arbuckle) is also a noted Stratford Banquo or Agamemnon, not every Sky Masterson (Evan Buliung) a Pericles or Petruchio. The New Yawk accents are novel.

Brent Carver in a scene from Martha Henry's production of the Shakespeare play.

The women negotiate the musical-theater style with more finesse, especially Blythe Wilson as a believably dim but lovable Miss Adelaide. And in smaller roles the advantages of the repertory system are evident in the quick, confident character choices made by actors who, on other days, are probably appearing in H.M.S. Pinafore and Romeo and Juliet. The repertory system doesnt, however, account for the narrative verve and daring athleticism of the dancing, which Ms. Feore brings so far forward on the Festival Theaters thrust stage that you expect to end up with a crapshooter in your lap.

That stage, part of Stratfords original 1953 design, informs the feeling of many productions here, even those that take place in the three newer performance spaces the festival maintains in this charming city of 31,000. Sight lines (and the limited space for traps and flies) do not permit a great deal of scenery, so the sets are typically minimal and the costumes, in compensation, maximal. The unusual depth of the thrust also means that audience members, even those in the last row of the balcony of the 1,800-seat flagship theater, are never far from the action. This encourages an intimate acting style.

Both qualities are evident in the effervescent Twelfth Night (through Oct. 21), which in Martha Henrys production feels personal but not maudlin. Shannon Taylor (also appearing in School for Scandal) beautifully traces the stages of Olivias recovery from grief; for once, you get the sense that her love for Viola (in disguise as Cesario) is drawing her back toward the sunlight in which she always belonged. The comedy and cruelties are nicely balanced, too, with an especially piquant contrast between Geraint Wyn Daviess Sir Toby Belch the best and funniest Shakespeare rou Ive encountered and the scarily dour Malvolio of Rod Beattie. But the star turn in this production comes from Brent Carver as the fool Feste, here a honey-voiced melancholic singing a suite of lovely songs (set by Reza Jacobs) while accompanying himself on glass bowls.

Music plays as large a role in Jillian Kelleys production of the Euripides drama often known as The Bacchae but rendered here more Greekly as Bakkhai. Playing in the round at the festivals Tom Patterson Theater through Sept. 23, this highly sexualized version, which required an intimacy choreographer, imagines the title characters as a throbbing coven of longhaired groupies, somewhere between an ambitious porno and a Summers Eve commercial. The 2015 adaptation by the poet Anne Carson also makes much of King Pentheuss fetishy eagerness to spy on the women; when he applies lipstick as part of his disguise he does so like someone who has been longing for just this chance.

That is apt enough, and even an extended sexual encounter between Pentheus and Dionysos, no doubt worked out with the intimacy choreographer, seems justifiable. But larger themes are crowded out by the productions narrow focus on individual and small group psychopathology. We dont feel the Euripidean conflict between civilization and hedonism or government and anarchy so much as that between personal repression and liberation. Still, the cheeky modern approach pays off when Ms. Peacocks Agave, realizing the horrors she has committed while under Dionysoss influence, faces a contemporary feminine punishment. Off comes the comfy robe; on go the heels and Spanx. Its actually devastating.

Because Bakkhai is playing in the same theater where, earlier that weekend, I saw Timon of Athens, and because Stratfords Timon also has a modern kick, I began to imagine Euripides and Shakespeare discussing hubris in that room. But the Timon, running through Sept. 21, makes a strong case, as Bakkhai ultimately does not, for an awkward and rarely done problem play.

Awkward because its first half, an incisive comedy of false friendship, has little to do with its second half, a ragged tragedy of Lear-like madness. The turning point comes when the wealthy and magnanimous Timon realizes what the rest of us already know: His friends are sycophants, adoring him only as long as the handouts last. Bankruptcy shows him the hard truth.

Its unclear what truth Shakespeare (and his probable co-author Thomas Middleton) meant to show us. This production, directed by Stephen Ouimette, sidesteps the message problem by focusing on the way personal relationships are tested by both largess and loss. The modernizing helps: Fops and poseurs and senators and generals are more easily recognizable in pinstripe suits than Greek chitons. When Timons loyal servant Flavius (Michael Spencer-Davis) sadly shows his master the household accounts, it makes perfect sense that they are on a laptop and we instantly understand the bad news that QuickBooks brings.

During the week I saw him in Timon, Mr. Spencer-Davis, in his seventh Stratford season, was also performing in The Changeling and rehearsing The Madwoman of Chaillot. Such a varied menu must be hectic, if thrilling, for an actor. For an audience it is enlightening, and not just because the plays acquire new depth in the process. The audience acquires new depth, too. More than once I found myself forced to wonder how many characters we all have lurking how many mad Timons and hopeful Adelaides in the repertory theater of our souls.

Follow Jesse Green on Twitter: @JesseKGreen

A version of this article appears in print on August 15, 2017, on Page C5 of the New York edition with the headline: Where Maenads Become Dolls Overnight.

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A First-Time Visitor Inhales Stratford's Theatrical Perfume - New York Times

Kovind for people-govt partnership for India’s growth with compassion and humanism – Millennium Post

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New Delhi: President Ram Nath Kovind on Monday pitched for a partnership between citizens and the government to create a New India by 2022 that is a "compassionate society" and includes the "humanist component integral to the nation's DNA".

In his maiden address to the Nation on the eve of 71st Independence Day, Kovind remembered the role of leaders of Independence struggle including Jawaharlal Nehru.

He said the generation that brought us to freedom was diverse which included men and women from all parts of the country and a variety of "political and social thought".

Asking people to draw inspiration from freedom fighters, Kovind said there was a need to invoke the same spirit today for nation building.

"The stress on the moral basis of policy and action, belief in unity and discipline, faith in a synthesis of heritage and science, and promotion of the rule of law and of education all of it is located in a partnership between citizen and government," he said.

Kovind said that is how India has been built--by a partnership between citizen and government, between individual and society, between a family and the wider community.

"Today, in big cities we may not even know our neighbours. Whether in cities or villages, it is important to renew that sense of caring and sharing. This will make us a gentler and happier society and help us understand each other with greater empathy," he said.

Kovind said this spirit of empathy and of social service and volunteerism is very much alive in India. "There are so many people and organisations that work quietly and diligently for the poor and the disadvantaged. We should also work with unity and purpose to ensure that the benefits of government policies reach all sections of society," he said.

He said partnership between citizens with government remains crucial to the success of several flagship announcements of the Narendra Modi government like voluntarily giving up LPG subsidy, demonetisation, introduction of GST besides schemes like 'beti bacaho beti padhao', 'Swachh Bharat' among others.

"I am happy that the transition to the GST system has been smooth. It should be a matter of pride for all of us that the taxes we pay are used for nation building--to help the poor and the marginalised, to build rural and urban infrastructure, and to strengthen our border defences," he said.

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Kovind for people-govt partnership for India's growth with compassion and humanism - Millennium Post

Can Europe Be Saved? – Commentary Magazine

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And yet realism is currently in crisis.

Realism was once a sophisticated intellectual tradition that represented the best in American statecraft. Eminent Cold War realists were broadly supportive of Americas postwar internationalism and its stabilizing role in global affairs, even as they stressed the need for prudence and restraint in employing U.S. power. Above all, Cold Warera realism was based on a hard-earned understanding that Americans must deal with the geopolitical realities as they are, rather than retreat to the false comfort provided by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

More recently, however, those who call themselves realists have lost touch with this tradition. Within academia, realism has become synonymous with a preference for radical retrenchment and the deliberate destruction of arrangements that have fostered international stability and prosperity for decades. Within government, the Trump administration appears to be embracing an equally misguided version of realisman approach that masquerades as shrewd realpolitik but is likely to prove profoundly damaging to American power and influence. Neither of these approaches is truly realist, as neither promotes core American interests or deals with the world as it really is. The United States surely needs the insights that an authentically realist approach to global affairs can provide. But first, American realism will have to undergo a reformation.

Realism has taken many forms over the years, but it has always been focused on the imperatives of power, order, and survival in an anarchic global arena. The classical realistsThucydides, Machiavelli, Hobbesconsidered how states and leaders should behave in a dangerous world in which there was no overarching morality or governing authority strong enough to regulate state behavior. The great modern realiststhinkers and statesmen such as Reinhold Niebuhr, Hans Morgenthau, George Kennan, and Henry Kissingergrappled with the same issues during and after the catastrophic upheaval that characterized the first half of the 20th century.

They argued that it was impossible to transcend the tragic nature of international politics through good intentions or moralistic maxims, and that seeking to do so would merely empower the most ruthless members of the international system. They contended, on the basis of bitter experience, that aggression and violence were always a possibility in international affairs, and that states that desired peace would thus have to prepare for war and show themselves ready to wield coercive power. Most important, realist thinkers tended to place a high value on policies and arrangements that restrained potential aggressors and created a basis for stability within an inherently competitive global environment.

For this very reason, leading Cold Warera realists advocated a robust American internationalism as the best way of restraining malevolent actors and preventing another disastrous global crack-upone that would inevitably reach out and touch the United States, just as the world wars had. Realist thinkers understood that America was uniquely capable of stabilizing the international order and containing Soviet power after World War II, even as they disagreedsometimes sharplyover the precise nature and extent of American commitments. Moreover, although Cold War realists recognized the paramount role of power in international affairs, most also recognized that U.S. power would be most effective if harnessed to a compelling concept of American moral purpose and exercised primarily through enduring partnerships with nations that shared core American values. An idealistic policy undisciplined by political realism is bound to be unstable and ineffective, the political scientist Robert Osgood wrote. Political realism unguided by moral purpose will be self-defeating and futile. Most realists were thus sympathetic to the major initiatives of postwar foreign policy, such as the creation of U.S.-led military alliances and the cultivation of a thriving Western community composed primarily of liberal democracies.

At the same time, Cold War realists spoke of the need for American restraint. They worried that Americas liberal idealism, absent a sense of limits, would carry the country into quixotic crusades. They thought that excessive commitments at the periphery of the global system could weaken the international order against its radical challengers. They believed that a policy of outright confrontation toward the Kremlin could be quite dangerous. Absolute security for one power means absolute insecurity for all others, Kissinger wrote. Realists therefore advocated policies meant to temper American ambition and the most perilous aspects of superpower competition. They supportedand, in Kissingers case, ledarms-control agreements and political negotiations with Moscow. They often objected to Americas costliest interventions in the Third World. Kennan and Morgenthau were among the first mainstream figures to go public with opposition to American involvement in Vietnam (Morgenthau did so in the pages of Commentary in May 1962).

During the Cold War, then, realism was a supple, nuanced doctrine. It emphasized the need for balance in American statecraftfor energetic action blended with moderation, for hard-headed power politics linked to a regard for partnerships and values. It recognized that the United States could best mitigate the tragic nature of international relations by engaging with, rather than withdrawing from, an imperfect world.

This nuance has now been lost. Academics have applied the label of realism to dangerous and unrealistic policy proposals. More disturbing and consequential still, the distortion of realism seems to be finding a sympathetic hearing in the Trump White House.

Consider the state of academic realism. Todays most prominent self-identified realistsStephen Walt, John Mearsheimer, Barry Posen, and Christopher Layneadvocate a thoroughgoing U.S. retrenchment from global affairs. Whereas Cold War realists were willing to see the world as it wasa world that required unequal burden-sharing and an unprecedented, sustained American commitment to preserve international stabilityacademic realists now engage in precisely the wishful thinking that earlier realists deplored. They assume that the international order can essentially regulate itself and that America will not be threatened byand can even profit froma more unsettled world. They thus favor discarding the policies that have proven so successful over the decades in providing a congenial international climate.

Why has academic realism gone astray? If the Cold War brokered the marriage between realists and American global engagement, the end of the Cold War precipitated a divorce. Following the fall of the Soviet Union, U.S. policymakers continued to pursue an ambitious global agenda based on preserving and deepening both Americas geopolitical advantage and the liberal international order. For many realists, however, the end of the Cold War removed the extraordinary threatan expansionist USSRthat had led them to support such an agenda in the first place. Academic realists argued that the humanitarian interventions of the 1990s (primarily in the former Yugoslavia) reflected capriciousness rather than a prudent effort to deal with sources of instability. Similarly, they saw key policy initiativesespecially NATO enlargement and the Iraq war of 2003as evidence that Washington was no longer behaving with moderation and was itself becoming a destabilizing force in global affairs.

These critiques were overstated, but not wholly without merit. The invasion and occupation of Iraq did prove far costlier than expected, as the academic realists had indeed warned. NATO expansioneven as it successfully promoted stability and liberal reform in Eastern Europedid take a toll on U.S.Russia relations. Having lost policy arguments that they thought they should have won, academic realists decided to throw the baby out with the bathwater, calling for a radical reformulation of Americas broader grand strategy.

The realists preferred strategy has various namesoffshore balancing, restraint, etc.but the key components and expectations are consistent. Most academic realists argue that the United States should pare back or eliminate its military alliances and overseas troop deployments, going back onshore only if a hostile power is poised to dominate a key overseas region. They call on Washington to forgo costly nation-building and counterinsurgency missions overseas and to downgrade if not abandon the promotion of democracy and human rights.

Academic realists argue that this approach will force local actors in Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia to assume greater responsibility for their own security, and that the United States can manipulatethrough diplomacy, arms sales, and covert actionthe resulting rivalries and conflicts to prevent any single power from dominating a key region and thereby threatening the United States. Should these calculations prove faulty and a hostile power be poised to dominate, Washington can easily swoop in to set things aright, as it did during the world wars. Finally, if even this calculation were to prove faulty, realists argue that America can ride out the danger posed by a regional hegemon because the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and Americas nuclear deterrent provide geopolitical immunity against existential threats.

Todays academic realists portray this approach as hard-headed, economical strategy. But in reality, it represents a stark departure from classical American realism. During the Cold War, leading realists placed importance on preserving international stability and heeded the fundamental lesson of World Wars I and IIthat the United States, by dint of its power and geography, was the only actor that could anchor international arrangements. Todays academic realists essentially argue that the United States should dismantle the global architecture that has undergirded the international orderand that Washington can survive and even thrive amid the ensuing disorder. Cold War realists helped erect the pillars of a peaceful and prosperous world. Contemporary academic realists advocate tearing down those pillars and seeing what happens.

The answer is nothing good. Contemporary academic realists sit atop a pyramid of faulty assumptions. They assume that one can remove the buttresses of the international system without that system collapsing, and that geopolitical burdens laid down by America will be picked up effectively by others. They assume that the United States does not need the enduring relationships that its alliances have fostered, and that it can obtain any cooperation it needs via purely transactional interactions. They assume that a world in which the United States ceases to promote liberal values will not be a world less congenial to Americas geopolitical interests. They assume that revisionist states will be mollified rather than emboldened by an American withdrawal, and that the transition from U.S. leadership to another global system will not unleash widespread conflict. Finally, they assume that if such upheaval does erupt, the United States can deftly manage and even profit from it, and that America can quickly move to restore stability at a reasonable cost should it become necessary to do so.

The founding generation of American realists had learned not to indulge in wishfully thinking that the international order would create or sustain itself, or that the costs of responding to rampant international disorder would be trivial. Todays academic realists, by contrast, would stake everything on a leap into the unknown.

For many years, neither Democratic nor Republican policymakers were willing to make such a leap. Now, however, the Trump administration appears inclined to embrace its own version of foreign-policy realism, one that bears many similarities toand contains many of the same liabilities asthe academic variant. One of the least academic presidents in American history may, ironically, be buying into some of the most misguided doctrines of the ivory tower.

Any assessment of the Trump administration must remain somewhat provisional, given that Donald Trumps approach to foreign policy is still a work in progress. Yet Trump and his administration have so far taken multiple steps to outline a three-legged-stool vision of foreign policy that they explicitly describe as realist in orientation. Like modern-day academic realism, however, this vision diverges drastically from the earlier tradition of American realism and leads to deeply problematic policy.

The first leg is President Trumps oft-stated view of the international environment as an inherently zero-sum arena in which the gains of other countries are Americas losses. The postWorld War II realists, by contrast, believed that the United States could enjoy positive-sum relations with like-minded nations. Indeed, they believed that America could not enjoy economic prosperity and national security unless its major trading partners in Europe and Asia were themselves prosperous and stable. The celebrated Marshall Plan was high-mindedly generous in the sense of addressing urgent humanitarian needs in Europe, yet policymakers very much conceived of it as serving Americas parochial economic and security interests at the same time. President Trump, however, sees a winner and loser in every transaction, and believeswith respect to allies and adversaries alikethat it is the United States who generally gets snookered. The reality at the core of Trumps realism is his stated belief that America is exploited by every nation in the world virtually.

This belief aligns closely with the second leg of the Trump worldview: the idea that all foreign policy is explicitly competitive in nature. Whereas the Cold War realists saw a Western community of states, President Trump apparently sees a dog-eat-dog world where America should view every transactioneven with allieson a one-off basis. The world is not a global community but an arena where nations, nongovernmental actors and businesses engage and compete for advantage, wrote National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn in an op-ed. Rather than deny this elemental nature of international affairs, we embrace it.

To be sure, Cold War realists were deeply skeptical about one worldism and appeals to a global community. But still they saw the United States and its allies as representing the free world, a community of common purpose forged in the battle against totalitarian enemies. The Trump administration seems to view U.S. partnerships primarily on an ad hoc basis, and it has articulated something akin to a what have you done for me lately approach to allies. The Cold War realistswho understood how hard it was to assemble effective alliances in the first placewould have found this approach odd in the extreme.

Finally, there is the third leg of Trumps realism: an embrace of amorality. President Trump has repeatedly argued that issues such as the promotion of human rights and democracy are merely distractions from winning in the international arena and a recipe for squandering scarce resources. On the presidents first overseas trip to the Middle East in May, for instance, he promised not to lecture authoritarian countries on their internal behavior, and he made clear his intent to embrace leaders who back short-term U.S. foreign-policy goals no matter how egregious their violations of basic human rights and political freedoms. Weeks later, on a visit to Poland, the president did speak explicitly about the role that shared values played in the Wests struggle against Communism during the Cold War, and he invoked the hope of every soul to live in freedom. Yet his speech contained only the most cursory reference to Russiathe authoritarian power now undermining democratic governance and security throughout Europe and beyond. Just as significant, Trump failed to mention that Poland itselfuntil a few years ago, a stirring exemplar of successful transition from totalitarianism to democracyis today sliding backwards toward illiberalism (as are other countries within Europe and the broader free world).

At first glance, this approach might seem like a modern-day echo of Cold War debates about whether to back authoritarian dictators in the struggle against global Communism. But, as Jeane Kirkpatrick explained in her famous 1979 Commentary essay Dictatorships and Double Standards, and as Kissinger himself frequently argued, Cold War realists saw such tactical alliances of convenience as being in the service of a deeper values-based goal: the preservation of an international environment favoring liberty and democracy against the predations of totalitarianism. Moreover, they understood that Americans would sustain the burdens of global leadership over a prolonged period only if motivated by appeals to their cherished ideals as well as their concrete interests. Trump, for his part, has given only faint and sporadic indications of any appreciation of the traditional role of values in American foreign policy.

Put together, these three elements have profound, sometimes radical, implications for Americas approach to a broad range of global issues. Guided by this form of realism, the Trump administration has persistently chastised and alienated long-standing democratic allies in Europe and the Asia-Pacific and moved closer to authoritarians in Saudi Arabia, China, and the Philippines. The presidents body language alone has been striking: Trumps summits have repeatedly showcased conviviality with dictators and quasi-authoritarians and painfully awkward interactions with democratic leaders such as Germanys Angela Merkel. Similarly, Trump has disdained international agreements and institutions that do not deliver immediate, concrete benefits for the United States, even if they are critical to forging international cooperation on key issues or advancing longer-term goods. As Trump has put it, he means to promote the interests of Pittsburgh, not Paris, and he believes that those interests are inherently at odds with each other.

To be fair, President Trump and his proxies do view the war on terror as a matter of defending both American security interests and Western civilizations values against the jihadist onslaught. This was a key theme of Trumps major address in Warsaw. Yet the administration has not explained how this civilizational mindset would inform any other aspect of its foreign policywith the possible exception of immigration policyand resorts far more often to the parochial lens of nationalism.

The Trump administration seems to be articulating a vision in which America has no lasting friends, little enduring concern with values, and even less interest in cultivating a community of like-minded nations that exists for more than purely deal-making purposes. The administration has often portrayed this as clear-eyed realism, even invoking the founding father of realism, Thucydides, as its intellectual lodestar. This approach does bear some resemblance to classical realism: an unsentimental approach to the world with an emphasis on the competitive aspects of the international environment. And insofar as Trump dresses down American allies, rejects the importance of values, and focuses on transactional partnerships, his version of realism has quite a lot in common with the contemporary academic version.

Daniel Drezner of Tufts University has noted the overlap, declaring in a Washington Post column, This is [academic] realisms moment in the foreign policy sun. Randall Schweller of Ohio State University, an avowed academic realist and Trump supporter, has been even more explicit, noting approvingly that Trumps foreign-policy approach essentially falls under the rubric of off-shore balancing as promoted by ivory-tower realists in recent decades.

Yet one suspects that the American realists who helped create the postWorld War II order would not feel comfortable with either the academic or Trumpian versions of realism as they exist today. For although both of these approaches purport to be about power and concrete results, both neglect the very things that have allowed the United States to use its power so effectively in the past.

Both the academic and Trump versions of realism ignore the fact that U.S. power is most potent when it is wielded in concert with a deeply institutionalized community of like-minded nations. Alliances are less about addition and subtractionthe math of the burden-sharing emphasized by Trump and the academic realistsand more about multiplication, leveraging U.S. power to influence world events at a fraction of the cost of unilateral approaches. The United States would be vastly less powerful and influential in Europe and Central Asia without NATO; it would encounter far greater difficulties in rounding up partners to wage the ongoing war in Afghanistan or defeat the Islamic State; it would find itself fighting alonerather than with some of the worlds most powerful partnersfar more often. Likewise, without its longstanding treaty allies in Asia, the United States would be at an almost insurmountable disadvantage vis--vis revisionist powers in that region, namely China.

Both versions of realism also ignore the fact that America has been able to exercise its enormous power with remarkably little global resistance precisely because American leaders, by and large, have paid sufficient regard to the opinions of potential partners. Of course, every administration has sought to put America first, but the pursuit of American self-interest has proved most successful when it enjoys the acquiescence of other states. Likewise, the academic and Trump versions of realism too frequently forget that America draws power by supporting values with universal appeal. This is why every American president from Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama has recognized that a more democratic world is likely to be one that is both ideologically and geopolitically more congenial to the United States.

Most important, both the academic and Trump versions of realism ignore the fact that the classical postWorld War II realists deliberately sought to overcome the dog-eat-dog world that modern variants take as a given. They did so by facilitating cooperation within the free world, suppressing the security competitions that had previously led to cataclysmic wars, creating the basis for a thriving international economy, and thereby making life a little less nasty, brutish, and short for Americans as well as for vast swaths of the worlds population.

If realism is about maximizing power, effectiveness, and security in a competitive global arena, then neither the academic nor the Trump versions of realism merits the name. And if realism is meant to reflect the world as it is, both of these versions are deeply deficient.

This is a tragedy. For if ever there were a moment for an informed realism, it would be now, as the strategic horizon darkens and a more competitive international environment reemerges. There is still time for Trump and his team to adapt, and realism can still make a constructive contribution to American policy. But first it must rediscover its rootsand absorb the lessons of the past 70 years.

A reformed realism should be built upon seven bedrock insights, which President Trump would do well to embrace.

First, American leadership remains essential to restraining global disorder. Todays realists channel the longstanding American hope that there would come a time when the United States could slough off the responsibilities it assumed after World War II and again become a country that relies on its advantageous geography to keep the world at arms length. Yet realism compels an awareness that America is exceptionally suited to the part it has played for nearly four generations. The combination of its power, geographic location, and values has rendered America uniquely capable of providing a degree of global order in a way that is more reassuring than threatening to most of the key actors in the international system. Moreover, given that today the most ambitious and energetic international actors besides the United States are not liberal democracies but aggressive authoritarian powers, an American withdrawal is unlikely to produce multipolar peace. Instead, it is likely to precipitate the upheaval that U.S. engagement and activism have long been meant to avert. As a corollary, realists must also recognize that the United States is unlikely to thrive amid such upheaval; it will probably find that the disorder spreads and ultimately implicates vital American interests, as was twice the case in the first half of the 20th century.

Second, true realism recognizes the interdependence of hard and soft power. In a competitive world, there is no substitute for American hard power, and particularly for military muscle. Without guns, there will notover the long termbe butter. But military power, by itself, is an insufficient foundation for American strategy. A crude reliance on coercion will damage American prestige and credibility in the end; hard power works best when deployed in the service of ideas and goals that command widespread international approval. Similarly, military might is most effective when combined with the softer tools of development assistance, foreign aid, and knowledge of foreign societies and cultures. The Trump administration has sought to eviscerate these nonmilitary capabilities and bragged about its hard-power budget; it would do better to understand that a balance between hard and soft power is essential.

Third, values are an essential part of American realism. Of course, the United States must not undertake indiscriminate interventions in the name of democracy and human rights. But, fortunately, no serious policymakernot Woodrow Wilson, not Jimmy Carter, not George W. Bushhas ever embraced such a doctrine. What most American leaders have traditionally recognized is that, on balance, U.S. interests will be served and U.S. power will be magnified in a world in which democracy and human rights are respected. Ronald Reagan, now revered for his achievements in improving Americas global position, understood this point and made the selective promotion of democracyprimarily through nonmilitary meansa key part of his foreign policy. While paying due heed to the requirements of prudence and the limits of American power, then, American realists should work to foster a climate in which those values can flourish.

Fourth, a reformed realism requires aligning relations with the major powers appropriatelyespecially today, as great-power tensions rise. That means appreciating the value of institutions that have bound the United States to some of the most powerful actors in the international system for decades and thereby given Washington leadership of the worlds dominant geopolitical coalition. It means not taking trustworthy allies for granted or picking fights with them gratuitously. It also means not treating actual adversaries, such as Vladimir Putins Russia, as if they were trustworthy partners (as Trump has often talked of doing) or as if their aggressive behavior were simply a defensive response to American provocations (as many academic realists have done). A realistic approach to American foreign policy begins by seeing great-power relations through clear eyes.

Fifth, limits are essential. Academic realists are wrong to suggest that values should be excised from U.S. policy; they are wrong to argue that the United States should pull back dramatically from the world. Yet they are right that good statecraft requires an understanding of limitsparticularly for a country as powerful as the United States, and particularly at a time when the international environment is becoming more contested. The United States cannot right every wrong, fix every problem, or defend every global interest. America can and should, however, shoulder more of the burden than modern academic and Trumpian realists believe. The United States will be effective only if it chooses its battles carefully; it will need to preserve its power for dealing with the most pressing threat to its national interests and the international orderthe resurgence of authoritarian challengeseven if that means taking an economy-of-force approach to other issues.

Sixth, realists must recognize that the United States has not created and sustained a global network of alliances, international institutions, and other embedded relationships out of a sense of charity. It has done so because those relationships provide forums through which the United States can exercise power at a bargain-basement price. Embedded relationships have allowed the United States to rally other nations to support American causes from the Korean War to the counter-ISIS campaign, and have reduced the transaction costs of collective action to meet common threats from international terrorism to p.iracy. They have provided institutional megaphones through which the United States can amplify its diplomatic voice and project its influence into key issues and regions around the globe. If these arrangements did not exist, the United States would find itself having to create them, or acting unilaterally at far greater cost. If realism is really about maximizing American power, true realists ought to be enthusiastic about relationships and institutions that serve that purpose. Realists should adopt the approach that every postCold War president has embraced: that the United States will act unilaterally in defense of its interests when it must, but multilaterally with partners whenever it can.

Finally, realism requires not throwing away what has worked in the past. One of the most astounding aspects of both contemporary academic realism and the Trumpian variant of that tradition is the cavalier attitude they display toward arrangements and partnerships that have helped produce a veritable golden age of international peace, stability, and liberalism since World War II, and that have made the United States the most influential and effective actor in the globe in the process. Of course, there have been serious and costly conflicts over the past decades, and U.S. policy has always been thoroughly imperfect. But the last 70 years have been remarkably good ones for U.S. interests and the global orderwhether one compares them with the 70 years before the United States adopted its global leadership role, or compares them with the violent disorder that would have emerged if America followed the nostrums peddled today under the realist label. A doctrine that stresses that importance of prudence and discretion, and that was originally conservative in its preoccupation with stability and order, ought not to pursue radical changes in American statecraft or embrace a come what may approach to the world. Rather, such a doctrine ought to recognize that true achievements are enormously difficult to come byand that the most realistic approach to American strategy would thus be to focus on keeping a good thing going.

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Can Europe Be Saved? - Commentary Magazine

Should the Jewish state allow same-sex families to adopt children? – Arutz Sheva

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Should a democratic, Jewish state allow single gender families to adopt children?

Should a single gender couple receive governmental support and approval to adopt and raise children in a democratic, Jewish state? This philosophically significant question is now before the Israeli Supreme Court.

This article will argue that that only two-gender families should receive governmental license and support for the adoption and the raising of children. It will explain why this policy is consistent with a conservative definition of a democratic, Jewish state. The Israeli Declaration of Independence makes it incumbent upon us to cope with social policy dilemmas (such as a adoption) in a way that is consistent with both our Jewish social-moral heritage, and with the democratic process.

A conservative political philosophical understanding of democracy

Conservative political philosophy argues that a nation and its representative government have an obligation to distinguish between the political legitimacy of particular social ways of life, and the obligation to respect the equal rights to privacy of all ways of life. This means that a nation has an obligation to prioritize the legitimacy of ways of life that it believes will further the national interest, and to provide governmental support that will promote these ways of life. At the same time, the government must respect and protect (decriminalize, and prevent persecution) the right of practitioners of all ways of life to practice their way of life in the privacy of their private, individual domain.

Applying this distinction between granting political legitimacy and respecting and protecting individual privacy to the question of the adoption of children in a democratic, Jewish state, we would argue that the Israeli government has the political right to argue that only two-gender families should be recognized as being politically legitimate in a Jewish state.

The government is correct to argue that two-gender families best further the Jewish interests of the state because : One, two gender families are in accord with the two thousand year old moral, Jewish heritage concerning the legal definition of a family. Two, two gender families are best equipped to further the national and security interests of increasing the demography of the Jewish people in our ongoing battle for national survival. Three, almost social science research ( done outside the hegemony of politically correct, academic liberalism) shows that the most healthy, nurturing psychological environment for child development is for children to spend the first 18 years of their life with two-gender, biological parents in a emotionally and financially secure family environment.

At the same time, the individual privacy of single gender couples should be fully respected. For example, the government should not prohibit a single gender couple from raising children (possibly from a previous marriage of one of the partners) in the privacy of their own home. The legal guardianship of one of the partners should be recognized. What a single gender couple does in its own house is its own business, and entitled to state protection. However, a newly formed single gender couple should not be allowed to legally allowed to adopt children in their own right, because in a democratic, Jewish state. single gender couples should not be legally recognized and promoted as a family unit.

American constitutional law supports this distinction between political legitimacy and individual privacy

My distinction between political legitimacy and individual privacy is taken straight from the constitutional history of America with regard to the practicing of religion. The constitutional history of America holds that local, state and federal governmental bodies are allowed to give political legitimacy (fund, support, and promote) ONLY to a secular, G-d neutral, way of life and social world view. It is illegal and politically illegitimate for any governmental body to support or fund an agency that is expounding a way of life and social world view in which G-d and his moral laws are central tenets.

Post modern moral relativism does not grant our two thousand year Jewish moral heritage any more political legitimacy than the legitimacy of the current, twenty year political activism of the multi-gender, sexual identity movement. The American constitution has been interpreted to hold that G-d neutral, secularism best promotes the national interests of America, because it is a doctrine that encourages a neutral, political playing field, and thus allows a wide diversity of ways of life to equally compete on the playing field. Also, it promotes Americas national interest by removing religion as a divisive force in civil life. Of course, in the domain of individual privacy, religious citizens can build their own educational and religious institutions with their own funds. Of course, the private practice of religious life is not criminalized, as it is in non-liberal democracies such as communist and Islamic states

This American constitutional perspective exactly parallels our argument concerning the illegitimate status of one gender couple adoption. Just as the American constitution says that only secularism is politically legitimate in public life, and that religion must be banished to the private, individual realm, we are advocating that only two gender based family adoptions are politically legitimate, and only they deserve government support, and the life of one gender couples will be conducted only in non-oppressive, private, individual domain(as is the status of religious practice and institutions in America).

To prevent moral nihilism and national self destruction a democratic, Jewish government must define which ways of life are more politically legitimate than others.

Politically correct liberalism accepts the post modern social philosophy tenet that political man is not capable of defining absolute laws of civil morality . Thus all ways of life are equally morally acceptable, and politically legitimate, as long as they are based on the non-coerced consent of the participant, and as long as they do not result in the physical harming or blatant oppression of a member of a competing way of life. Thus politically correct liberalism would argue that one gender couples should be held on an equal status with regard to adoption as two gender families. Post modern moral relativism does not grant our two thousand year Jewish moral heritage any more political legitimacy than the legitimacy of the current, twenty year political activism of the multi-gender, sexual identity movement (LGBT).

We cannot risk the further development and security of the Jewish state (that we have miraculously received) by conducting social experiments based on the recently arrived post modern moral relativism. An unopposed post modern relativism (with its emphasis on universalism , agnostic humanism, and self centered, multi gendered life styles) will inevitably lead to the erosion of our two thousand year Jewish heritage of proud Jewish nationalism, multi generational, two gender familyhood, and G-d base communal life.

Summary

It is imperative that we take a conservative approach to social change, and oppose the social experimentation involved in one gender adoption. A responsible Israeli government should grant political legitimacy only to two gender family adoptions, while democratically respecting the private lives of one gender couples in the individual (non-public) domain. This approach parallels the democratic principles of the American constitutional history regarding the role of religion in the public realm, ie. religious practice is delegated in America to the private individual realm, and cannot receive political legitimacy, funding or support in the public realm.

If the American constitution can democratically grant preference and public legitimacy to secularity over religiosity, the government of a Jewish state can certainly democratically grant preference and public legitimacy to the two-gender family over one gender couples with regard to adoption.

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Should the Jewish state allow same-sex families to adopt children? - Arutz Sheva

Boston mayor tells ‘free speech’ group: ‘We don’t want you’ – Washington Examiner

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Boston's Democrat Mayor Marty Walsh said Monday that he doesn't want a free speech rally to take place next Saturday on Boston Common that some say was organized by the same people who put together the violent rally in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend.

The group Boston Free Speech is hoping to hold a rally next weekend, but Walsh said police are investigating that group, and said he's already decided the event should be called off.

"Our police intelligence unit is doing information gathering right now to see who they are," he said. "We don't need this type of hate. So my message is clear to this group: we don't want you in Boston. We don't want you on Boston Common."

Former Hillary Clinton campaign manager Brian Fallon suggested on Twitter that the rally is being organized by Jason Kessler, who led Saturday's protest in Charlottesville. But the group rejected Fallon's claim.

"We are not in any way associated with the organizers of the Charlottesville rally. This was a lie and blatant attempt at defamation by Brian Fallon on twitter," organizers for Boston Free Speech said in a Facebook post.

A rally organizer said the rally is focused on free speech and is in no way associated with white supremacists.

"We aren't in any way associated with what happened in Virginia," a rally organizer who identified himself as Steven told New England Cable News. "We are strongly, strongly against violence in any way shape or form."

At least 1,000 people are expected to attend the free speech rally on the Boston Common Saturday as local law enforcement look to develop security plans for the event. The group held a similar rally in May with no reported incidents.

Still, in the aftermath of protests in Charlottesville, Boston officials fear the same violence that killed one and injured 19 could come to their city. Boston's mayor said he would be meeting with city officials to discuss the upcoming rally.

"We're going to be working together this whole week to send a message to everyone that's heading to Boston, those that are of the mindset of white supremacy to those who understand we're all God's children we're working together. No violence," Boston Police Superintendent William Gross told WBZ.

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Boston mayor tells 'free speech' group: 'We don't want you' - Washington Examiner

The ‘Free Speech’ Hypocrisy of Right-Wing Media – New York Times

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The clip fit perfectly into the Fox News narrative about the dangers of leftist radicalism on campuses. It also perfectly encapsulated the networks hypocrisy about defending free speech.

When it comes to protecting the speech of people who are most vulnerable to being intimidated into silence like people of color and gay people conservatives either are suspiciously quiet or drive further intimidation with wildly negative news coverage.

Its not just the right. Most schools including Princeton, where I teach support their besieged professors. But in recent months, other progressive academics have been investigated, disciplined and even fired for comments they made outside of the classroom. This is an ominous turn. The trend has become so visible that earlier this year, the American Association of University Professors implored institutions to take a stand by resisting calls for the dismissal of faculty members and by condemning their targeted harassment and intimidation.

Progressives deserve the same speech protection as conservatives. The American Civil Liberties Union and the PEN organization have gone out of their way to defend the rights of provocative speakers like Milo Yiannopoulos and Ann Coulter to speak on campuses, but have been virtually silent on cases involving leftist or progressive faculty members who face suspension for provocative comments. Lisa Durden, an adjunct professor at Essex County College in New Jersey, was fired after she appeared on the Fox News program Tucker Carlson Tonight to explain why black people might gather for an all-black celebration of Memorial Day.

Johnny Eric Williams, an associate professor at Trinity College, had to go into hiding after the conservative website Campus Reform blasted his use of racially charged language in critiquing white supremacy. He was besieged with threatening emails and suspended from his position. (Trinity eventually cleared Professor Williams of any wrongdoing.)

Tommy Curry, an associate professor at Texas A&M, faced death threats recently when an old interview he gave about the movie Django Unchained was characterized as racist bilge by the magazine The American Conservative. Texas A&M distanced itself from Dr. Curry and only later, under pressure, expressed its unwavering support for academic freedom.

What is shocking is that while the right-wing media is wringing its hands about suppressive leftists, openly racist and fascist-sympathizing organizations are recruiting young white people on campuses. That conservative pundits have precious little to say when campuses are defiled with swastikas, nooses and racist fliers but cry foul when people like Richard Spencer, Mr. Yiannopoulos and Ms. Coulter are met with protest has become a sick paradox of our time.

In the coming school years, those who are quick to defend the rights of white nationalists and neo-Nazis to speak on campuses must be just as vigilant about protecting the rights of faculty and students to speak out against them or risk revealing their hypocrisy.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is an assistant professor of African-American studies at Princeton.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

A version of this op-ed appears in print on August 14, 2017, on Page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: Free Speech Isnt Just for The Right.

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The 'Free Speech' Hypocrisy of Right-Wing Media - New York Times

Tech companies in the crosshairs on white supremacy and free speech – Reuters

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TORONTO/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer had its internet domain registration revoked twice in less than 24 hours in the wake of the weekend violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, part of a broad move by the tech industry in recent months to take a stronger hand in policing online hate-speech and incitements to violence.

GoDaddy Inc, which manages internet names and registrations, disclosed late on Sunday via Twitter that it had given Daily Stormer 24 hours to move its domain to another provider, saying it had violated GoDaddy's terms of service.

The white supremacist website helped organize the weekend rally in Charlottesville where a 32-year-old woman was killed and 19 people were injured when a man plowed a car into a crowd protesting the white nationalist rally.

After GoDaddy revoked Daily Stormer's registration, the website turned to Alphabet Inc's Google Domains. The Daily Stormer domain was registered with Google shortly before 8 a.m. Monday PDT (1500 GMT) and the company announced plans to revoke it at 10:56 a.m., according to a person familiar with the revocation.

As of late Monday the site was still running on a Google-registered domain. Google issued a statement but did not say when the site would be taken down.

Internet companies have increasingly found themselves in the crosshairs over hate speech and other volatile social issues, with politicians and others calling on them to do more to police their networks while civil libertarians worry about the firms suppressing free speech.

Twitter Inc, Facebook Inc, Google's YouTube and other platforms have ramped up efforts to combat the social media efforts of Islamic militant groups, largely in response to pressure from European governments. Now they are facing similar pressures in the United States over white supremacist and neo-Nazi content.

Facebook confirmed on Monday that it took down the event page that was used to promote and organize the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.

Facebook allows people to organize peaceful protests or rallies, but the social network said it would remove such pages when a threat of real-world harm and affiliation with hate organizations becomes clear.

Facebook does not allow hate speech or praise of terrorist acts or hate crimes, and we are actively removing any posts that glorify the horrendous act committed in Charlottesville, the company said in a statement.

Several other companies also took action. Canadian internet company Tucows Inc stopped hiding the domain registration information of Andrew Anglin, the founder of Daily Stormer. Tucows, which was previously providing the website with services masking Anglins phone number and email address, said Daily Stormer had breached its terms of service.

They are inciting violence, said Michael Goldstein, vice president for sales and marketing at Tucows, a Toronto-based company. Its a dangerous site and people should know who it is coming from.

Anglin did not respond to a request for comment.

Discord, a 70-person San Francisco company that allows video gamers to communicate across the internet, did not mince words in its decision to shut down the server of Altright.com, an alt-right news website, and the accounts of other white nationalists.

We will continue to take action against white supremacy, Nazi ideology, and all forms of hate, the company said in a tweet Monday. Altright.com did not respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, Twilio Inc Chief Executive Jeff Lawson tweeted Sunday that the company would update its use policy to prohibit hate speech. Twilios services allow companies and organizations, such as political groups or campaigns, to send text messages to their communities.

Internet companies, which enjoy broad protections under U.S. law for the activities of people using their services, have mostly tried to avoid being arbiters of what is acceptable speech.

But the ground is now shifting, said one executive at a major Silicon Valley firm. Twitter, for one, has moved sharply against harassment and hate speech after enduring years of criticism for not doing enough.

Facebook is beefing up its content monitoring teams. Google is pushing hard on new technology to help it monitor and delete YouTube videos that celebrate violence.

All this comes as an influential bloc of senators, including Republican Senator Rob Portman and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, is pushing legislation that would make it easier to penalize operators of websites that facilitate online sex trafficking of women and children.

That measure, despite the non-controversial nature of its espoused goal, was met with swift and coordinated opposition from tech firms and internet freedom groups, who fear that being legally liable for the postings of users would be a devastating blow to the internet industry.

Reporting by Jim Finkle in Toronto and Salvador Rodriguez in San Francisco; Additional reporting by David Ingram and Dustin Volz in San Francisco, and Chris Michaud in New York and Alastair Sharp in Toronto; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Lisa Shumaker

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Tech companies in the crosshairs on white supremacy and free speech - Reuters

Opinion Journal: Free Speech in Charlottesville – Wall Street Journal (subscription)

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8/14/2017 12:41PM Opinion Journal: The Identity Politics Warning 8/14/2017 12:58PM Opinion Journal: North Korea: No Diplomatic Endgame 8/14/2017 12:47PM Opinion Journal: Free Speech in Charlottesville 8/14/2017 12:41PM Opinion Journal: The Cotton-Perdue Immigration Mistake 8/3/2017 1:27PM Opinion Journal: Big Labors Nissan Gamble 8/3/2017 1:19PM Opinion Journal: Throwing Money at ObamaCare? 8/3/2017 1:13PM Opinion Journal: The Supreme Court's Racial Wrangling 8/3/2017 1:08PM Opinion Journal: North Korea Regime Change: The Only Solution? 7/31/2017 1:19PM Opinion Journal: White House Staff Shake-Up 7/31/2017 1:17PM Opinion Journal: Twitter Isnt a Bully Pulpit 7/31/2017 1:15PM Opinion Journal: Venezuelas Coming Civil War 7/31/2017 1:13PM Talking Taxes: How to Bring Offshore Profits Home 8/10/2017 6:00AM

U.S. companies are holding more than $2.6 trillion in profits across the globe and they haven't paid U.S. taxes on it. Why is so much money offshore, and how could the tax code be changed to bring it back? WSJ's tax reporter Richard Rubin dives in. Photo: Heather Seidel/The Wall Street Journal

On the iPhones 10th birthday, former Apple executives Scott Forstall, Tony Fadell and Greg Christie recount the arduous process of turning Steve Jobss vision into one of the best-selling products ever made.

President Donald Trump on Monday denounced white supremacist groups by name following criticism of an earlier statement in which he blamed 'many sides' for the violence in Charlottesville, Va. Photo: Evan Vucci/AP

Add another property to the list of assets Mel Gibson is looking to unload: 403 acres of Costa Rican jungle.

President Donald Trump on Thursday said his "fire and fury" comments from earlier in the week may not have been tough enough. Photo: Getty

Theres no age limit for learning about computers, iPads, smartphones and more at New Yorks Senior Planet, a center where anyone 60 and over can get free lessons in the latest tech. Photo: Sangsuk Sylvia Kang/The Wall Street Journal

Watch a clip from "The Trip to Spain," starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. Photo: IFC Films

Taggart Matthiesen, Lyft's director of product, talks to MarketWatch about how autonomous vehicles can revolutionize the ride-sharing industry.

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Opinion Journal: Free Speech in Charlottesville - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

It’s not anti-free speech to expose academics in the press – Washington Examiner

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Academics and liberal thought leaders are increasingly vocal about the treatment of professors who are exposed by conservative media outlets for objectionable speech and behavior. This complaint, one shared even by some usual defenders of free expression on campus, was on display in a New York Times op-ed published Monday titled "The Free Speech' Hypocrisy of Right-Wing Media."

Author Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, an assistant professor of African-American studies at Princeton University, argued that conservatives who purport to be defenders and upholders of free expression in academia also advocate for the silencing of liberals who engage in speech and behavior to which they object. "When it comes to protecting the speech of people who are most vulnerable to being intimidated into silence like people of color and gay people conservatives either are suspiciously quiet or drive further intimidation with wildly negative news coverage," Taylor wrote.

The professor cited her own experience with conservative media, recalling when Fox News clipped a portion of her commencement address to Hampshire College where she called President Trump a "racist, sexist megalomaniac."

"That a junior faculty member of Princeton was critical of Mr. Trump in a speech at a small liberal arts college should not be surprising," Taylor argued in her New York Times op-ed.

Perhaps it's not surprising, but newsworthiness is not always based on surprise value.

Taylor cited conservative media's reporting on other professors who faced consequences after conservative media reported on comments they made, including Johnny Eric Williams, who was suspended, and Lisa Durden, who was fired. In the wake of the shooting on Congressional Republicans that put House Majority Whip Steve Scalise in the ICU, Williams posted an article that argued officers who responded to the tragedy should have let the lawmakers die. "Saving the life of those that would kill you is the opposite of virtuous. Let. Them. Fucking. Die," the article said. Williams posted it to Facebook with the hashtag "#LetThemFuckingDie."

Durden beclowned herself in a bizarre and unprofessional interview with Tucker Carlson during which she defended a Black Lives Matter event where white people were not allowed to attend by exclaiming, "[B]oo hoo hoo, you white people are angry because you couldn't use your white privilege card to get invited to the Black Lives Matters [sic] all black Memorial Day celebration."

One can reasonably support free expression and academic inquiry while also questioning whether either professor is fit to teach impressionable young students.

Academics on campuses are like tortoises in the Galpagos (I think that's a Chuck Klosterman phrase) -- they've been allowed to evolve for decades without competition, morphing into hardened radicals in the lack of oversight.

I will concede two points: (1) Like the rest of the press, conservative outlets can occasionally go too far on campus reporting, making mountains out of molehills and sometimes taking quotes and behavior out of context. (2) There are certainly some conservatives who have the same reflex to censor disagreeable speech as people on the Left.

But students and taxpayers fund higher education to the tune of thousands and thousands of dollars -- it's in the public's interest to know when a professor or administrator acts unprofessionally or displays a worldview that is so radical it calls their ability to effectively educate students into question. In those cases, it's less a matter of free speech and more a matter of job qualifications.

Furthermore, a conservative media outlet's decision to expose a professor's statement or behavior does not mean that outlet, or interested readers, necessarily support the firing or targeting of a given employee.

If "democracy dies in darkness," as the Washington Post recently reminded us, darkness is also capable of killing academia as well.

Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.

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It's not anti-free speech to expose academics in the press - Washington Examiner

McGrady: Extremist violence is killing free speech – Savannah Morning News

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One person died. Nineteen others injured. Why? Someone decided to commit an act of violence against American protesters in Charlottesville, Va.

In other words, free speech suffered a major trial at an alt-right rally this past weekend. And, this trial serves as a litmus test for the American people, indicating how free speech and civil discourse like protesting is not what it used to be.

The culture war is unwinnable, for either side, if violence is the solution to repressing hate speech.

The problems arent the ideologies that are clashing, nor most of the people who buy into the messages of the alt-right white nationalists or the lefts extreme Antifa. The real perpetrators of this indecent and the violence against a variety of political opinions are seen in the select ranks of extremists who view violence as the only means to affect real change in honor of these ideologies.

Antifa hospitalizing a Trump supporter for wearing a Make America Great Again hat is not defending liberty.

A white supremacist plowing a car into a crowd of by-standing counter protesters is not defending liberty.

In fact, these activities reflect the worst of the American people. Sadly, our proud country of differing ideologies, diversity of opinion, and social backgrounds has also suffered a loss.

You dont necessarily have to agree with my belief in free markets and totally, unhindered freedom of conscience; however, what makes America great is the ability to open civil dialogues and debates in the public square. However, hindering someones ability to challenge or defend the status quo by the force of violence is a violation of everyones freedom.

This type of violent behavior fuels the fires on both sides. Antifa organizations have a vendetta. White nationalists are going to defend themselves. More violence will pour from this.

Hate speech or bias against the societal narrative are also not the problem. Being able to dissent and voice your beliefs is a part of the American experience and this sentiment applies to both the left and the right. Whether its on campus, at a protest or in the political space, peoples free speech rights need protection at all costs. The only difference between speech and violence is the action. Acting on violent thoughts will result in the hate speech becoming assault. The last I checked, assault on any justification isnt protected. Its criminal behavior.

Last, the fault of our culture stooping to the very worst of identity politics is on all of us. We need to resist ethno-fascism and social-fascism just as much as we need to resist more government control. The only catch, though, is that this can only be done through civil engagement.

Having dissenting and harmful opinions is important; however, there is no room to tolerate the actual acts of violence. Oscar Wilde once said, I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an ass of yourself.

Personally, I would protect all the protesters rights of conscience in Charlottesville as, I am sure, millions of other would. On the other hand, the violence is the very reason we need to revitalize the importance of sitting down, talking issues out, and respecting the humanity of your opponents.

We also need to consider that political violence is terrorism; however, hate speech isnt. Everyone has the right to form their own opinions, no matter how extreme.

But, there should no remorse for someone who is willingly going to a protest to hurt, and potentially kill someone, of whom disagrees with their belief, in order to make a statement.

Thats an act against freedom.

Michael McGrady, a political consultant, is the executive director of the Washington-based McGrady Policy Research. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.

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McGrady: Extremist violence is killing free speech - Savannah Morning News