Gabriel S De Anda | Writer

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Everything has been said, but not everything has been said superbly, and even if it had been, everything must be said freshly over and over again. Paul Horgan

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The times they are a-changing, especially in the realm of self-publishing.Acres of verbiage have been expended on the pros and cons of authors doing it for themselves.We will have to content ourselves here with saying, Not all tomes produced in this fashion are valueless. Heres one worthy candidate: Cherubimbo (Xlibris, trade paper, $19.99, 190 pages, ISBN 978-1-4628-4731-0) by Gabriel S. de Anda. With prior publication credits in several respectable zines, these stories come pre-vetted by an editorial acumen that is so often absent in other DIY productions. A practicing lawyer, de Anda infuses a couple of pieces with stefnal legal expertise, in the vein of Charles Harness. Time travel offers him lots of room for playful speculation, particularly in the emotionally resonant 1969. And some colorful posthumanism informs My Year To Be A Horse. De Andas touch is solid yet light-hearted, a winning one-two punch.

Paul Di Filippo 2013

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Here are a two more books by Gabriel S. de Anda.

The rest is here:

Gabriel S De Anda | Writer

Claude Speeed is the trance-inspired ambient nomad documenting Berlin’s rave sadness – FACT

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FACT Rated is our series digging into the sounds and stories of the most vital breaking artists around right now. This week, Scottish producer Claude Speeed tells John Twells how his new album Infinity Ultra emerged from the moments before and after hedonism.

IN SHORT NAME:CLAUDE SPEEED FROM:EDINBURGH MUST-HEAR: MY SKELETON (LUCKYME, 2014) FOR FANS OF:TIM HECKER, KONX-OM-PAX, LORENZO SENNI

If you were looking closely at LuckyMe post-rock band American Mens 2010 debut Cool World, youd have noticed a track named after Grand Theft Auto 2 protagonist Claude Speed. It was around this time that the bands Stuart Turner decided to adopt the moniker for himself (adding an extra e) and begin penning what would become Infinity Ultra, his second solo album.

Id been making a lot of stuff I enjoyed listening to, but would sound dumb if it had drums on it, and the drummers were really good, he explains. It felt a bit ridiculous to say to them OK theres gonna be a lot of tracks where you dont have to do anything at all. So I felt like I needed some other outlet for that kind of music.

For one reason or another, however, Turners initial solo experiments were shelved when he quit his day job as a corporate lawyer in 2012 and traveled to Asia, with his modest studio setup for company. A MacBook Air and a pair of headphones, along with a field recorder, provided the backbone of debut album My Skeleton, which acted as a kind of travelogue for Turner, documenting his trip. In contrast, Infinity Ultra is a set of tracks the producer has collecting for years.

The first track is legitimately the first Claude Speeed track. I wrote that in 2011 and havent really changed it since then, he tells me. I realized at some point that Id done all these other tracks that I was really into, but they werent consistent with each other so they wouldnt make a record. Eventually, Turner played the tracks together and had a lightbulb moment this was the album hed been trying to desperately to make. It had been right there all along. Not very conceptual, he laughs. But thats what happened.

When I make music, it tends to be fairly sad music in the end.

Instead of focusing on a specific concept, with Infinity Ultra, Turner has allowed his life experiences over the last few years seep into the music as they happened. So while the album started life in Edinburgh, much of it has been colored by his move to Berlin, where hes been based for about five years. The syrupy ambience and near-devotional qualities of My Skeleton are still present, just about, but theres a vivid dancefloor glow thats hard not to attribute to Germanys de facto capital of club culture.

I think thats something to do with the rave sadness of Berlin, Turner says, pensively. Especially when I first arrived, I went to parties really more than I should have and was out a lot, and the music I made was really sad, even though I was having a lot of fun. Hes not talking about a comedown either (when he made the move, he was straight-edge), but the absence of hedonism: a level of calm thats hard to describe as anything but sad. I was partied out, like a character in a film. And you see that a lot, and that influences the sound. Thats what Im interested in. For someone else it might express itself in terms of really dark techno, but thats not my thing, so thats not the way it comes out.

Its really not. Infinity Ultra is woozy and cinematic, especially on VHS-warped opener BCCCC, pulling in influence from trance (Ambien Rave, Fifth Fortress), noise (Super 800 NYC) and post-rock (Enter the Zone) as the album develops. It might be informed by Berlin, but Turner doesnt make dance music his tracks are vignettes, hinged on memory and melancholy. Im not a sad person, he assures me. But I feel if Im being honest when I make music, it tends to be fairly sad music in the end. And I like listening to sad music as well.

Infinity Ultra is out on July 14 via Planet Mu.

John Twells is on Twitter

Read next: New Atlantis is ushering in the new wave of new age

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Claude Speeed is the trance-inspired ambient nomad documenting Berlin's rave sadness - FACT

Is the Washington Metro Brutalist? (part 2) – HuffPost

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The label may be limiting how we see the design of the capital subway stations.

Larry Levine/WMATA

The Washington Metros form, structure, and space surely relate much more to these historical models than they do to Brutalism. The vault geometry is reminiscent of the structural virtuosity in Antonio Gaudis catenary arches and vaults, and the coffers are shaped to be as efficient as possible with material and reduce the weight of the structure, a technique possibly influenced by the experimentation of Buckminster Fuller and Frei Otto, both widely known in the 1960s. By contrast, buildings characterized as Brutalist often are over-structured, because the rationalism of the early European approach morphed into idiosyncratic sculptural expression in the USa battered bunker aesthetic of fortress-like piles of gray concrete, according to the Boston Globe. Louis Kahn bashed what he called the muscular posturing of most Brutalism, which the authors of Heroic call more Marlboro man than Mad Men.

In this view of Brutalism, it was fascinated with weighty massiveness, while Weeses Metro is all lightness and lift, an effect that is evident even in his earliest concept sketches (which, incidentally, indicate no particular material or structure). The airy and spacious design, as the AIA described it in 2014, is markedly different from canonical Brutalist structures, which have more spatial complexity. The clarity of the Metros centering makes the space navigable and understandable (AIA), while at the Boston City Hall and especially the Rudolph building at Yale, space continually pivots, forcing diagonal views and paths, shifting perspectives to create a sense of movement and mystery. While some point to repetition of a single elementsay, Metros waffle-shaped ceilings as a typical attribute of Brutalism, this doesnt apply to many of the most noted examples, including the Rudolph, the Pei, or the exterior of Gordon Bunshafts Hirsshorn Museum, also in DC.

At most, the Washington Metro has a peripheral affiliation with Brutalism, mainly due to its material and age. Yet, the stations have been described as landmarks of Brutalist design and emblematic of all the rules of Brutalist architecture, and Hurley insists, The Washington Metro is not a minor work of Brutalism. If it is such a major example, why did no one identify it as such until recently? Zachary Schrag, author of The Great Society Subway: A History of the Washington Metro (2006), tells me that in his research he did not encounter the word in relation to the Metro in any formal architectural publication from the 1960s til his book was published. Online, I can find little or no evidence of the term applied to the Metro until the past decade, over 30 years after the first station opened and 40 years after it was designed.

Various

In 2007, the Metro appeared in Americas Favorite Architecture, the AIAs survey of the 150 most popular buildings in the US. While the AIA makes no mention of Brutalism, Wikipedias entry on the survey identifies the Metro as Brutalist, and its page on Weese calls it the only brutalist design to win a place on the list. I cant determine the dates and authors of these references, but otherwise I have found virtually no online references prior to 2009, when a few commenters began to use the appellation. One of the earliest instances occurred that summer in Greater Greater Washingtonby none other than Matt Johnson, the same planner who kicked off the paint controversy this year: Metro is widely known for its soaring, brutalist vaults (8/24/09). (Capitalization comes and goes with the word.) References practically exploded in 2010, and by the time it received the Twenty-five Year Award in 2014, the label had become fairly commonat least among a particular cadre of critics, editors, and journalists. To this day, with relatively few exceptions the identified writers who apply the term to the Metro apparently include only a small group of Washington-area residents: notably Johnson, Capps, Hurley, Madsen, Dan Reed in the Washingtonian, Michelle Goldchain in Curbed, and Katie Gerfen, who in her 2014 coverage of the AIA award for Architect magazine mentions the Metros signature Brutalist vaults, although the AIA itself did not use that designation.

What accounts for the prolonged delay, even among these writers? According to Google Ngram, which tracks words and phrases in print sources through the year 2008, use of the term Brutalism climbed steadily from 1950 to 1970, flatlined in the 70s and 80s, had a resurgence in the 90s, and peeked around 1997 (incidentally, the year Paul Rudolph died). In the past decade, the number of books published on Brutalism appears to exceed the total number published at any point before. As mid-century concrete buildings began reaching middle age, and many, including DCs Third Church of Christ, Scientist, were being razed, preservationists took notice. As more and more examples of classic Brutalism face demolition by neglect, Madsen has said about his Brutalist Washington Map, we hope that putting these examples of D.C.'s Brutalist architecture on the map will foster public appreciation that ensures their longevity. Schrag observes, If you want to get people to value a concrete bunker, you need to articulate its particular worth, and identifying it with a particular brand of modern architecture is one way to do that.

Whatever the reason for the resurgence, as Brutalism was on the rise, the Washington Metro also was getting more attention, making the AIA 150 list in 2007 and receiving the 25-Year Award in 2014. The following year brought a flurry of media attention on the preservation of Brutalist buildings. Over the past decade, the coincidence of general interest in the movement and specific interest in the Metro brought the two together, and the project retroactively got a new label, half a century after the fact.

Google

But does the shoe fit? Pasnik and Grimley demur: I dont think were in the position to evaluate the Metro and its classification, suggesting that even some experts on Brutalism dont immediately see an obvious alignment. Bruegmann is more decisive: Certainly the Metro is not a good example of the Brutalist style [as it was understood in the 60s and 70s]. It did not come out of the same mindset as, say, Rudolph's building at Yale. Susan Piedmont-Palladino, Director of the Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center (WAAC) and a curator at the National Building Museum (NBM) in DC, agrees: I don't put Metro in the Brutalist category. Simply being made of concrete isn't sufficient to be labelled Brutalist. She has lectured widely on Brutalism, and her 2010 NBM event arguably helped spur local interest.

Piedmont-Palladino sees the style as less Classical and more Gothic: You want structure? I'll show you structure! The British critic John Ruskin affectionately called Gothic architecture rude and wild, she says. I would argue that's a pretty good description of Brutalist architecture. Weeses metro design is anything but rude and wild. Even before the first station was completed, Bruegmann recounts, the Washington Post hailed its serene kind of beauty.

Art-historical shorthands can be helpful to guide us toward prevailing views of a work, but the best works invariably resist pigeonholing because they transcend particular movements or styles. As the late architect Michael Graves remarked, labels have the negative value of making smaller boundaries. During the 60s, when Brutalism was emergent, Walter Gropius complained about the irrepressible urge of critics to classify contemporary movements [by] putting each neatly in a coffin with a style label on it. In a 2013 essay, Pasnik and Grimley write that the reduction of Brutalism to a stylistic label exclusively associated with concrete has made it a rhetorical catastrophe.

During the paint debate this Spring, the US Commission on Fine Arts (CFA), which helped develop the Metro system, sent a letter to WMATA to express concern. It emphasized the majestic quality of the Metro stations, now considered a masterpiece of modern design and some of the most important civic spaces in Washington. The DC chapter of the AIA sent a similar letter. Neither mentions Brutalism, which remains an historical trend with many detractors that is vaguely defined at best and for which the Metro is not a perfect example.

Champions of Weeses design might be more effective in appealing for better upkeep if they portray it in the most expansive terms possible, as do the CFA, the national AIA, and the local AIA. As one of the 150 most popular structures in the country and one of fewer than 50 buildings to win the Twenty-five Year Award, the Washington Metro is so much bigger than Brutalism.

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General Soleimani: Support for oppressed people increases Iran’s power – Ahlul Bayt News Agency: Providing Shia News (press release)

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(AhlulBayt News Agency) - The fact even admitted by Iran's enemies that the country's power has increased ten times more than before is indicative of Tehran's policy and rationalism as well as its support for the oppressed people of the region, said IRGC senior commander Major-General Qasem Soleimani.

Speaking in a local gathering, Soleimani, the Quds Force commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), said the clear example of the increase of Irans power in the region is that images of Father of the Islamic Revolution the late Imam Khomeini and Irans current Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei are presented in all regional countries.

He described the cause of Palestine as a pivotal issue for the region saying that certain Arab states were against establishment of the International Quds Day.

The International Quds Day was initiated by the late Imam Khomeini after the Islamic Revolution as an opportunity for world Muslims and non-Muslims to express their support for the cause of Palestine and their hatred towards atrocities of the Zionist Regime against the defenseless people of Palestine.

The innocent people of Palestinian are surrounded by a number of their friends and also certain Islamic countries.

Designating the International Quds Day was one of the masterworks made by Imam Khomeini, Soleimani said noting that the event has brought more and more dignity for the Islamic Iran.

Noting that the terrorist group of ISIS was created by Takfiri terrorists to establish a so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Levant aiming at ruining the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The commander underscored that those who sponsored the Takfiri terrorists were trying to fan the flames of insecurity but they have finally failed to bring the Iranian nation to its knees through numerous acts of aggression.

Thanks to Irans global defense from the innocent Iraqi and Syrian people, Soleimani noted the Islamic Republic of Iran is considered as the most beloved country across the globe.

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General Soleimani: Support for oppressed people increases Iran's power - Ahlul Bayt News Agency: Providing Shia News (press release)

What’s left of the political center in America? A new book seeks answers. – Casper Star-Tribune Online

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Nebulous lines and shifting policies make it difficult to know where the culture wars start and end in America. Its no secret that chasms are growing wide, and walls are getting taller. In a new book, sociologist Philip Gorski elegantly traces two diverging lines of popular ideology, arguing convincingly that our current political gap isnt new. Rather, its a part of a deeply ingrained battle for control between two American religious traditions that date back to before our country was founded.

In American Covenant, Gorski portrays a political culture split between conservative, apocalyptic nativists who believe themselves to be the inheritors of the fiery religious fundamentalism of the early Puritans and atheist liberals, the cultural elitist heirs of the Enlightenments secular rationalism. While one side wants freedom of religion, the other side wants freedom from it. Yet Gorski puts forth that the unifying tissue between these two camps is the American civil religion, a concept pioneered by sociologist Robert Bellah in 1967 that seeks to describe the foundational shared ideals that both sides can agree upon.

Thats a promising thought.

But for all the discussion of so-called civil religion in Gorskis book, he manages to barely discuss what it looks like. Sure, there are quasi-religious rituals existing within our national life, such as the sacrosanct Fourth of July, and numerous depictions of Civil Religious art, like The Apotheosis of Washington painted on the dome of the U.S. Capitol. But at its heart, what are the core doctrinal creeds that Gorski argues have the power to unite America? Sadly, theyre not as easy to identify as one would hope. Of course, if they were, perhaps we wouldnt have such a fractured political landscape in the first place. And given that the two groups Gorski describes are so different, it is unsurprising that he struggles to describe the space where their views overlap, thus challenging the entire premise of so-called civil religion.

If Gorskis two camps sound a bit extreme, thats because they are. With its blustery descriptions of apocalyptic Hebrew prophets and enlightened freethinkers, the story of civil religion in American Covenant can come across like fantasy. Gorski describes the relationships between religious nationalism, radical secularism, and civil religion as akin to tribal warfare with ancient roots. Comparing the United States that Gorski depicts to stories like Harry Potter or the Lord of the Rings might be unfair, but the author certainly manages to show how both sides of the religion and political divide in America see themselves as the heros of a polarized moral universe in which each sides noble prophets serve as leading actors in a showdown between good and evil.

Gorski highlights some of the radically different ideas that exist at the nexus of each sides prophetic thought, focusing on important thinkers across the spectrum from Martin Luther King himself to John Calhoun. Yet, while Gorski himself writes that his civil religion is a panoramic portrait of a diverse people marching together through time toward a promised land across landscapes both light and darkhopeful without being fantastical, and progressive without being naively optimistic, the traditions from which he draws on arent all that diverse.

Gorski offers civil religion as a framework for maintaining the political center in our country the famed moderates that are much discussed by pollsters during election years yet who seem to be absent from Washington, D.C. But Gorski paints this type of religion as possessed of a single, Judeo-Christian and largely white lineage. While it is undeniable that there is an extreme emphasis on Judeo-Christian tradition within the United States, is there room in our unique civil religion for the traditions of other cultures? While there are some Jews and African Americans mentioned as prophets of the civil religion outlined by Gorski, what of the Asian, African, Mexican or Native American religious traditions that exist in the United States?

A more fruitful conversation about what it means to be moderate in America will likely require the inclusion of more cultural voices than appear in American Covenant. The civil religion of the nations founding was forged by European immigrants. If the movement is to survive our current, fractious politics, perhaps we should consider that its defining characteristics in the future may not come from within our tradition at all just as none of its founders did.

Jake Rosenberg is a writer and playwright based in New York City.

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What's left of the political center in America? A new book seeks answers. - Casper Star-Tribune Online

A US state now lets anyonenot just parentsrequest to ban books in schools – Quartz

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Nosy Floridians now have another outlet for their moral outrage. Now anybody in the US state can formally complain about books used in public schools, and schools are required to hear them out.

Last week governor Rick Scott signed a bill that allows any Florida resident to formally challenge new or old materials, like books and movies, available in public schools. In drafting the bill, lawmakers specifically added language that expanded the complaint process to include anyone, not just parents.

Original law:

Each district school board must adopt a policy regarding a parents objection to his or her childs use of a specific instructional material, which clearly describes a process to handle all objections and provides for resolution.

New law, with new language highlighted:

Each district school board must adopt a policy regarding an a parents objection by a parent or a resident of the county to the his or her childs use of a specific instructional material, which clearly describes a process to handle all objections and provides for resolution.

The law also lays out specific guidelines on how schools should field complaints to materials used in class, included in school libraries, and placed on reading lists. Previously the law said that when schools wanted to add new materials, parents had to file a petition within 30 days of the introduction, and that schools had to list the petition on their site and hold a public forum about it. The new version of the law adds that the petition can be filed by anyone, not just a parent; that forums will be overseen by a formal hearing officer, who cant be an employee of the school district; and that schools now have 30 days to hold the forums, instead of seven.

It adds three reasons that material can be challenged:

The purported goal of the bill is to create more transparency around what Florida kids are learning in school. But it effectively institutionalizes censorship, with broad criteria like not suited to student needs. Critics fear that the new legislation constitutes a big step toward the suppression of information on evolution and climate change. And it can be used as a formal process to keep out classics and new works that Floridians think are inappropriate.

According to the office for intellectual freedom (OIF), a part of the American Library Association, the added red-tape will ultimately be used to pressure individual teachers into sticking with safe choices. The goal of this bill is to tie up educators with so much process and challenge and review that they give up on trying to teach contemporary authors on difficult subjects, says OIF director James LaRue, And to intimidate anyone who crosses a political line.

He adds, This is not about education; its about politics.

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A US state now lets anyonenot just parentsrequest to ban books in schools - Quartz

Censorship Board bans songs from Cairokee’s new album – Mada Masr

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Courtesy: Cairokee

Egyptian band Cairokee has announced that four songs from its upcoming album have not been approved by Egypts Censorship Board. In a Sunday statement on its Facebook page, the band wrote that the album will not be commercially released in its full form given the boards decision.

The censored songs include lyrics about everyday life, our problems as young people, social media and what we see on TV our usual topics, said 33-year old frontman and songwriter Amir Eid, who doesnt think any of the content is particularly controversial. If anything, I feel, as a songwriter, that I didnt say everything I wanted to say.

It is a standard practice for the Censorship Board to review songs before commercial release, but Cairokee, whose rise to fame came as a result of their politically-inspired music, has not had songs blocked before.

Set for release on July 11, Nota Beida (A Drop of White) will be the five-member bands seventh album, following 2015s Nas W Nas. The title track was released as a single in May and has been viewed over 880,000 times on YouTube.

On Wednesday, days after a sold-out show on July 1 as part of Londons Shubbak Festival that featured teasers from the new album, Eid told a maa Masr that the band was not given an official reason for the Censorship Boards decision.

We dont know the real reason, he said. Its possible the album wont be released commercially at all. He added that the matter is currently being handled by the bands lawyers.

While the Censorship Board has objected to the use of certain words in the past, in this case they objected to the release of entire songs, Eid said.

One of the songs that was not approved by the board, which is titled Al-Keif (The High), tackles youth drug use. Ironically, Eid says, the band was contacted by the Social Solidarity Ministrys drug use prevention and treatment program, which asked if it could use the song in an upcoming media campaign.

We will continue with our initial plan and release the full album online, said Eid, cautioning that he did not want to overstate the issue. We have our own parallel world in which we operate. Our fans are all online, and thats that.

The good news is that well keep going, and our music will remain free, read the the bands Facebook statement. It will be available on the internet and on digital stores, with visuals for each song.

Although formed in 2009, Cairokee became widely known during the 2011 revolution, after it recorded the song Sout al-Horreya (The Voice of Freedom), which some protesters took up as an anthem. The song was subsequently picked up by radio stations and TV channels.

The band has since collaborated with prominent figures in the regions music industry, including Algerian singer Souad Massi and late Egyptian poet Ahmed Fouad Negm.

Its latest album includes a collaboration with vocalist Abel Rahman Rushdy, who is known for his sufi style of singing.

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Censorship Board bans songs from Cairokee's new album - Mada Masr

CNN in odd role as censor: Network threatens free speech over Trump wrestling video – USA TODAY

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Jonathan Turley, Opinion Columnist Published 4:03 p.m. ET July 5, 2017 | Updated 6:14 p.m. ET July 5, 2017

CNN has been accused of blackmailing the man who created a meme of President Donald Trump tackling CNN by threatening to reveal his identity. USA TODAY

President Trumps video tweet on July 2, 2017.(Photo: Twitter, @realDonaldTrump)

CNN has reported that it has confirmed the identity of the creator of the controversial videothat shows President Trumptaking down someone with the CNN logo for a head. Like many, I was highly critical of the president for reposting the video on his Twitter account. That wasboth irresponsible and unpresidential.

What is curious is that CNN has withheld the creator'sidentity while making a thinly veiled threat that it will release his name if he posts anything CNN finds disturbing or offensive. That is an odd role for a news organization. The newsmedia do not usually put citizens on probation forexercising theirfree speech.

CNN announced that it had identified the Reddit user HanA**holeSolo who first shared the video that Trump reposted with the hashtags #FraudNewsCNN and #FNN. CNN said the man also posted images with racist and anti-Semitic imagery. Heissued a long apology and removed all of the images.

"I am not the person that the media portrays me to be in real life.I was trolling and posting things to get a reaction from the subs on Reddit and never meant any of the hateful things I said in those posts, he wrote. He said hewas engaging in what he thought was satire or trolling fun on Reddit.

Like the poster, I ama fan of Reddit, which is known for its open forum and varied viewpoints. It is often caustic and funny. At times, it is offensive and disturbing. However, it is a genuine and largely uninhibited forum for free expression.

No, Trump's wrestling tweet doesn't 'incite violence'

Yes, Donald Trump and other presidents can be charged with obstruction

The Trump videoby the Reddit user was a typical satire on contemporary political events. It is not even clear whetherit was meant as a celebration or a criticism of Trump. It simply swapped out the face of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) CEO Vince McMahon with the CNN gif.

It was the exercise of free speech. It was also news. While posting such a video on Reddit is not surprising or noteworthy, it took on an entirely new character when Trump reposted it. He haswaged an intense war against the news media and CNN in particular. That makes the original poster'sidentity newsworthy.

CNN, however, stated that it has decided to withhold hisname for now. He is a private citizen, the network said, who apologized, took down the offending posts and said he is not going to repeat this ugly behavior on social media. In addition, he said his statement could serve as an example to others not to do the same.

CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change.

The last statement is particularly jarring. It sounds like CNN is putting a citizen on a type of media probationary status threatening to reveal his name if it deems any posting as constituting ugly behavior. It puts a news organization in the position of monitoring free speech and deciding whether to ruin someone if he crosses some ill-defined line with CNN. It is the antithesis of what a news organization is supposed to be about.

CNN caved to Trump. It should have stood by its reporters.

POLICING THE USA: A look at race, justice, media

If the mans name is news, CNN can choose to publish it or not publish it. In reality, he is news only because his videotape was snatched from obscurity and paraded to the world by the president of the United States. It is the Internet equivalent of being hit by lightning. If the man posts an anti-media comment or gif, will CNN then declare it news and post his name? It is not clear how long this probationary period will run, let alone the standard for distinguishing between free speech and ugly speech.

Nor is there a clear rationale behind a media probationary status. Journalists will often withhold the names of sexual assault victims or minors. However, they don'tthreaten to reveal those names if they fall to meet the news organizations' expectations or standards in future conduct. Indeed, even when juries reject sexual assault claims, CNN continues to protect thenames.

In this case, CNN is behaving like a media censor. The president arbitrarily selected this man and his gif. Now CNN appears willing to arbitrarily punish him.

It is the threat of future disclosure that is so concerning and dangerous.News is not supposed to be a weapon to be brandished to induce good conduct by organizations like CNN. Free speech and free press go hand in hand. Indeed, many reporters are protected more under the former right than the latter in legal controversies. Once a news organization becomes the manager of free speech, it becomes a menace to the free press.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.

You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @USATOpinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment to letters@usatoday.com.

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NRA’s Dangerous Propaganda Video Is Aimed At the Left – Free Speech TV

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GUEST: George Zornick, Nation Magazine's Washington editor, author of a new article, "Gun Sales Are Plummeting and Trump Wants to Help"

BACKGROUND: The NRA, which spent tens of millions of dollars to help elect Donald Trump, has recently posted to its Facebook page a terrifying video aimed at progressives. Conservative talk radio host Dana Loesch is the video's narrator and she begins by saying, "They use their media to assassinate real news." She goes on to say that teachers are teaching children to think of Trump as Hitler and imply that President Barack Obama is backing the resistance to Trump and inciting people to "smash windows, burn cars, shut down interstates and airports," and "bully and terrorize the law-abiding."

Loesch concludes that, "the only option is for the police to do their jobs and stop the madness." The video ends claiming that the NRA is "freedom's safest place."

But my guest George Zornick, the Nation's Washington editor has a cover story in the latest edition of the magazine. In it he writes that NRA head Wayne La Pierre, "understands the gun-rights movement as a culture war first and a battle over gun laws second."

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NRA's Dangerous Propaganda Video Is Aimed At the Left - Free Speech TV

A State Steps Up to Protect Campus Free Speech – National Review

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Campus leftists have so tramped upon freedom of speech that a legislative reaction was inevitable. A model bill, the Campus Free Speech Act, has been drafted and introduced in quite a few state legislatures this year. One state is North Carolina. The bill has passed both the House and Senate and now sits on Governor Coopers desk. I dont know whether he will sign it or not. The state has a lot of rabid progressives who helped elect Cooper in last falls nail-biter election and they might persuade him to veto the bill on the grounds that it interferes with what they view as their terrain the UNC system.

One reason why the campus Left opposed the bill is that it requires that state colleges and universities adhere to institutional neutrality. Thats a crucial feature argues Jay Schalin in todays Martin Center article.

While individual administrators and faculty members should naturally be free to take any position on political issues, the institutions should not take sides. Schalin provides several examples. When colleges insist that faculty members and applicants submit diversity statements, that amounts to an official position that only if you are willing to declare your support for a set of extremely debatable notions are you fit to teach there. Another example is the Climate Leadership Statement that many college presidents have signed. It means that the school has taken sides in the argument over climate change. That could silence faculty members who disagree but dont want to jeopardize their jobs.

Schalin concludes, With the Free Speech Act, the North Carolina legislature has provided some powerful safeguards against future politicization of the states colleges and universities, and it deserves great praise for securing those protections. Of course, more needs to be done, so it should not rest on this years laurels but continue to improve the academic atmosphere in the states higher education institutions for the benefit of all North Carolinians. Thats right, and if the campus leftists cant stand operating under rules that protect free speech and depoliticize academe, they are free to leave.

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Column: UM paper should support free speech – Detroit News – The Detroit News

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Grant Strobl Published 10:48 p.m. ET July 4, 2017 | Updated 10:48 p.m. ET July 4, 2017

The Michigan Daily editorial not only has a perverted understanding of First Amendment jurisprudence but also ignores the University of Michigans current policy, Strobl writes.(Photo: John T. Greilick / The Detroit News)Buy Photo

The Michigan Daily recently published an editorial voicing opposition to two free speech bills pending in the Michigan Senate on the grounds that hecklers should be allowed to veto speech.

The editorial not only has a perverted understanding of First Amendment jurisprudence, but also ignores the University of Michigans current policy.

The Michigan Daily is wrong to suggest that our Constitution does not protect the right to listen to a speech classified as freedom of speech. In less confusing words, students have no right to listen to speech.

This is absurd. Public university facilities are considered limited public forums, meaning they cannot discriminate based upon viewpoint. Constitutionally, administrators must provide equal access to campus facilities for all students. They have an obligation to protect the freedom of expression of speakers sponsored by student groups in university venues. When the university allows hecklers to veto speech of only one viewpoint, they are de facto suppressing speech based on content.

In fact, the University of Michigan has a policy Standard Practice Guide 601.1 on Freedom of Speech and Artistic Expression to protect the free speech rights of speakers and the students hosting them. That policy states, when hecklers try to subvert a speech on campus, the effect is just as surely an attack on freedom of speech or artistic expression as the deliberate suppression or prohibition of a speaker or artist by authorities. Hecklers subverting an event, according to existing University of Michigan policy, can also be removed.

Although some sections of Standard Practice Guide 601.1 need improvement, the policy is largely sound free speech policy.

The editorial also wrongly supports the university for allowing Black Lives Matter activists students and outsiders alike to subvert a Michigan Political Union debate. The university should have abided by its policy and removed the protesters who prevented the event from occurring as planned. Instead, university leaders stood silently as hundreds of protesters invaded and shut down the scheduled debate. This is why there are needed improvements to Standard Practice Guide 601.1, and why the State of Michigan needs to take further action to protect speech on campuses statewide.

The Michigan Daily ends its editorial by implying that the two Senate bills uphold free speech for speakers, but not for students. Their argument suggests that speakers exist on campus against the will of the students. This could not be further from the truth. Liberal student groups host leftist speakers without interruption, but when students hosts a conservative speaker, then it is okay to veto speech.

This mentality is antithetical to free speech and the mission of the University of Michigan. This is exactly the reason why Michigans legislators must act to ensure free speech for all students.

Michigan universities should be forced to remove disruptors who unduly interfere with events held by student groups, regardless of speakers viewpoints. When the radicals break the law, they should face the consequences. It is imperative to prevent situations in Michigan, like those at the University of California, Berkeley, where campus police have issued stand-down orders for protests against conservative speakers and have outright denied conservative student groups access to university venues.

Young Americas Foundation is currently suing Berkeley to secure the free speech, due process, and equal protection rights of students.

The two proposed bills, sponsored by Sen. Patrick Colbeck, will help protect students right to free speech and expression on campus, conservative and liberal alike. As a side benefit, if enforced, the two laws just might save taxpayers thousands of dollars in attorneys fees to defend future violations of free speech on campus.

Grant Strobl is the national chairman of Young Americans for Freedom.

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Transphobic Freedom Of Speech Bus Wrapped In Rainbow Flag: Gay People Are Not What You Fear – NewNowNext

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by Cody Gohl 8h ago

After being forced out of the United States by LGBT activists, the anti-trans Freedom of Speech bus has made its way to Mexico, where its beenonce againmet with protest.

National Organization for Marriage

Sponsored by the National Organization for Marriage, CitizenGo, the International Organization for the Family, and other anti-LGBT groups, the orange shuttle has been visiting cities around the world imparting a hateful message: Boys are boys and always will be. Girls are girls and always will be. You cant change sex. Respect all.

The bus has since been vandalized, defaced with graffiti and denounced by city leaders, including Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, who spoke out against the bus before raising the transgender pride flag at city hall.

Instead of parking the bus for good, organizers responded to the resistance by taking their campaign to Guadalajara, Mexico, where they were promptly greeted by protesters.

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On the day the vehicle was scheduled to roll through the city, activists from National Congress of GLBTI, Inclusive Vote and Codise gathered to prevent the bus from moving by surrounding it in a large rainbow flag.

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These right-wing groups want to remove the rights [of the most vulnerable], said Jaime Cobin, a protester. Gay people are not what you fear. They are your sons, fathers, brothers, bishops and priests.

He concluded: Since Mexico is moving forward on LGBTI rights, we will not let there be a setback.

Texas native with a penchant for strong margaritas, early Babs and tastefully executed side-eye.

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Transphobic Freedom Of Speech Bus Wrapped In Rainbow Flag: Gay People Are Not What You Fear - NewNowNext

First Gaia Symposium scheduled for July 7-9 in Weed – Taft Midway Driller

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The first Gaia Symposium (Conscious Evolution) is scheduled for July 7, 8 and 9 in the Kenneth Ford Theater at College of the Siskiyous in Weed.

Mount Shasta resident Jonathon Shalomar said he and other members of Awake Within The Dream Productions are putting on the event, which features speakers, a concert, and after-symposium workshops on July 10 and 11 in Mount Shasta.

Dr. Bruce Lipton, one of two keynote speakers, is a cell biologist and lecturer and author of The Biology of Belief and The Honeymoon Effect. In 2009 he received the Goi Peace Award in honor of his pioneering work in the field of new biology, which has contributed to a greater understanding of life and empowered many people to take control of their own lives.

Symposium presentations are scheduled from 9 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. daily.

The list of presenters, according to information submitted by Shalomar, includes:

Dr. Bruce Lipton Keynote Speaker

Tricia McCannon Keynote Speaker

Jamye Price

William WhiteCrow

Ron Amitron

Michael Cremo

Stephanie South

Dr. Paul Drouin

Grace

Eostar and Mathias Special Concert

Many of the presenters, according to Shalomar, will be giving an extra workshop, and those tickets will be sold separately from the symposium.

Tickets for the symposium are available on the website: http://www.awakewithinthedreamproductions.com and at Soul Connections in Mount Shasta.

The price of the full three-day event ticket is $199 per person.

Limited ticket sales for Fridays Gaia Symposium opening day are available at a marked down rate of $25.

Daily tickets and workshop tickets are also available.

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First Gaia Symposium scheduled for July 7-9 in Weed - Taft Midway Driller

Who do we think we are? – New Scientist

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We long to transcend the human condition

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By Joanna Kavenna

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

For those whom thou thinkst thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

Here we are discussing transhumanism, defined by evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley in 1957 as the belief that the human species can and should transcend itself by realizing new possibilities of and for human nature. What relevance could the poet John Donne have to such a discussion?

A more recent explanation of transhumanism, by Oxford University philosopher Nick Bostrom, calls it a loosely defined movement that has developed gradually over the past two decades Attention is given to both present technologies, like genetic engineering and information technology, and anticipated future ones, such as molecular nanotechnology and artificial intelligence. This formulation resembles the poetry of English clerics even less than Huxleys did.

But though Bostrom does not express himself in quite the same fashion as Donne, the overarching sentiment is not dissimilar: Death, thou shalt die, or at least thou shalt be postponed as far as possible. Bostrom continues: Transhumanists view human nature as a work-in-progress, a half-baked beginning that we can learn to remold in desirable ways.

In other words, before death postponed or otherwise, life might be made considerably nicer: less fraught with disease and suffering, and altogether less half-baked. This is a metaphor from cooking, and transhumanist rhetoric is awash with such, at times treacherous, metaphors.

Transhumanists hope that by responsible use of science, technology, and other rational means we shall eventually manage to become posthuman, beings with vastly greater capacities than present human beings have. Bostroms lovely sentiment that the half-baked human must be improved by the responsible use of science has driven humanity for millennia, ever since we began using technologies of flint and fire and so on, and through innumerable and utterly vital developments in medicine and science. So one key question that we must pose and seek to discuss is how, specifically, the transhumanist movement will depart from or further enhance this consistent strain in human history?

Transhumanisms signature ambition, that we may become posthuman, leads us to a baroque and venerable question: what does it mean to be human, anyway? If we want to go beyond something, to transcend it, it is clear we must understand our starting point, the point beyond which we desire to go. The quest to fathom the self, to understand what it means to be human, is fundamental to almost every civilisation known to us. It defines one of the earliest works of literature, the Epic of Gilgamesh from ancient Mesopotamia, in which our protagonist embarks on a quest to understand who on earth he is and what hes meant to do with his mortal span of years. In ancient religious texts such as the Upanishads, all creation begins with the moment of becoming: I am! That is, the world comes from mind itself.

In many global religions, the human self is divided into body and soul, a material and an immaterial part. During the Enlightenment, Descartes famously tried to reconcile this ancient distinction and also placate the church by proposing that the material and immaterial somehow communicated or mingled via the pineal gland.

Skipping boldly through a few centuries of thought, we might arrive (blinking in surprise) at the philosophical novels of Philip K. Dick and his brilliant Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? This poses the ancient question again: what does it mean to be human? When is someone/something convincingly human and when are they not? Is your version of being human the same as mine? Or the same as the next humans?

As the Australian philosopher David Chalmers has said, consciousness this mysterious thing that every human possesses or feels they possess remains the hard problem of philosophy. We lack a unified theory of consciousness. We dont understand how consciousness is generated by the brain, or even whether this is the right metaphor to use. We speak of such mysteries in a funny system of squeaks and murmurs that we call language and that swiftly drops into the blackness of prehistory when we seek to trace its origins. We dont know who the first humans were: that fascinating quest likewise drives us straight into a great void of unknowing.

There is nothing wrong with unknowing: it is the ordinary condition of all humanity, so far. Yet, undeterred, we devise bold, elegant theories and advance them in many disciplines of thought. We develop beautiful and exciting almost-human machines and speculate about uploading consciousness. And in so doing, we are consistently rebaking, reheating or refrying the ancient philosophical dilemma: what does it mean to be human?

Pace Bostrom, transhumanism has not developed over the past few decades. Its predilections and concerns have developed over several millennia, and possibly further back, within civilisations we no longer recall. To go back in time to Ecclesiastes, there is nothing new under the sun. We are still here, and human, with our paradoxical longing to transcend the human condition.

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The Threat of Human Genetic Engineering – hgalert.org

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David King

The main debate around human genetics currently centres on the ethics of genetic testing, and possibilities for genetic discrimination and selective eugenics. But while ethicists and the media constantly re-hash these issues, a small group of scientists and publicists are working towards an even more frightening prospect: the intentional genetic engineering of human beings. Just as Ian Wilmut presented us with the first clone of an adult mammal, Dolly, as a fait accompli, so these scientists aim to set in place the tools of a new techno-eugenics, before the public has ever had a chance to decide whether this is the direction we want to go in. The publicists, meanwhile are trying to convince us that these developments are inevitable. The Campaign Against Human Genetic Engineering, has been set up in response to this threat.

Currently, genetic engineering is only applied to non-reproductive cells (this is known as 'gene therapy') in order to treat diseases in a single patient, rather than in all their descendants. Gene therapy is still very unsuccessful, and we are often told that the prospect of reproductive genetic engineering is remote. In fact, the basic technologies for human genetic engineering (HGE) have been available for some time and at present are being refined and improved in a number of ways. We should not make the same mistake that was made with cloning, and assume that the issue is one for the far future.

In the first instance, the likely justifications of HGE will be medical. One major step towards reproductive genetic engineering is the proposal by US gene therapy pioneer, French Anderson, to begin doing gene therapy on foetuses, to treat certain genetic diseases. Although not directly targeted at reproductive cells, Anderson's proposed technique poses a relatively high risk that genes will be 'inadvertently' altered in the reproductive cells of the foetus, as well as in the blood cells which he wants to fix. Thus, if he is allowed to go ahead, the descendants of the foetus will be genetically engineered in every cell of their body. Another scientist, James Grifo of New York University is transferring cell nuclei from the eggs of older to younger women, using similar techniques to those used in cloning. He aims to overcome certain fertility problems, but the result would be babies with three genetic parents, arguably a form of HGE. In addition to the two normal parents, these babies will have mitochondria (gene-containing subcellular bodies which control energy production in cells) from the younger woman.

Anderson is a declared advocate of HGE for medical purposes, and was a speaker at a symposium last year at UCLA, at which advocates of HGE set out their stall. At the symposium, which was attended by nearly 1,000 people, James Watson, of DNA discovery fame, advocated the use of HGE not merely for medical purposes, but for 'enhancement': 'And the other thing, because no one really has the guts to say it, I mean, if we could make better human beings by knowing how to add genes, why shouldn't we do it?'

In his recent book, Re-Making Eden (1998), Princeton biologist, Lee Silver celebrates the coming future of human 'enhancement', in which the health, appearance, personality, cognitive ability, sensory capacity, and life-span of our children all become artifacts of genetic engineering, literally selected from a catalog. Silver acknowledges that the costs of these technologies will limit their full use to only a small 'elite', so that over time society will segregate into the "GenRich" and the "Naturals":

"The GenRich - who account for 10 percent of the American population - all carry synthetic genes... that were created in the laboratory ...All aspects of the economy, the media, the entertainment industry, and the knowledge industry are controlled by members of the GenRich class...Naturals work as low-paid service providers or as labourers, and their children go to public schools... If the accumulation of genetic knowledge and advances in genetic enhancement technology continue ... the GenRich class and the Natural class will become...entirely separate species with no ability to cross-breed, and with as much romantic interest in each other as a current human would have for a chimpanzee."

Silver, another speaker at the UCLA symposium, believes that these trends should not and cannot be stopped, because to do so would infringe on liberty.

Most scientists say that what is preventing them from embarking on HGE is the risk that the process will itself generate new mutations, which will be passed on to future generations. Official scientific and ethical bodies tend to rely on this as the basis for forbidding attempts at HGE, rather than any principled opposition to the idea.

In my view, we should not allow ourselves to be lulled into a false sense of security by this argument. Experience with genetically engineered crops, for example, shows that we are unlikely ever to arrive at a situation when we can be sure that the risks are zero. Instead, when scientists are ready to proceed, we will be told that the risks are 'acceptable', compared to the benefits. Meanwhile, there will be people telling us loudly that since they are taking the risks with their children, we have no right to interfere.

One of the flaws in the argument of those who support the possibility of HGE for medical purposes is that there seem to be very few good examples where it is the only solution to the medical problem of genetic disease. The main advantage of HGE is said to be the elimination of disease genes from a family. Yet in nearly all cases, existing technologies of prenatal and preimplantation genetic testing of embryos allow the avoidance of actual disease. There are only a few very rare cases where HGE is the only option.

Furthermore, there is always another solution for those couples who are certain to produce a genetically disabled child and cannot, or do not want to deal with this possibility. They can choose not to have children, to adopt a child, or to use donor eggs or sperm. Parenthood is not the only way to create fulfilment through close, intimate and long lasting relationships with children. The question we have to ask is whether we should develop the technology for HGE, in order to satisfy a very small number of people.

Although the arguments for the first uses of HGE will be medical, in fact the main market for the technology will be 'enhancement'. Once it was available, how would it be possible to ensure that HGE was used for purely medical purposes? The same problem applies to prenatal genetic screening and to somatic gene therapy, and not only are there no accepted criteria for deciding what constitutes a medical condition, but in a free market society there seems to be no convincing mechanism for arriving at such decision. The best answer that conventional medical ethics seems to have is to `leave it up to the parents', ie. to market forces.

Existing trends leave little doubt about what to expect. Sophisticated medical technology and medical personnel are already employed in increasingly fashionable cosmetic surgery. Another example is the use of genetically engineered human growth hormone (HGH), developed to remedy the medical condition of growth hormone deficiency. Because of aggressive marketing by its manufacturers, HGH is routinely prescribed in the USA to normal short children with no hormone deficiency. If these pressures already exist, how much stronger will they be for a technology with as great a power to manipulate human life as HGE?

Germ line manipulation opens up, for the first time in human history, the possibility of consciously designing human beings, in a myriad of different ways. I am not generally happy about using the concept of playing God, but it is difficult to avoid in this case. The advocates of genetic engineering point out that humans constantly 'play God', in a sense, by interfering with nature. Yet the environmental crisis has forced us to realise that many of the ways we already do this are not wise, destroy the environment and cannot be sustained. Furthermore, HGE is not just a continuation of existing trends. Once we begin to consciously design ourselves, we will have entered a completely new era of human history, in which human subjects, rather than being accepted as they are will become just another kind of object, shaped according to parental whims and market forces.

In essence, the vision of the advocates of HGE is a sanitised version of the old eugenics doctrines, updated for the 1990s. Instead of 'elimination of the unfit', HGE is presented as a tool to end, once and for all, the suffering associated with genetic diseases. And in place of 'improving the race', the 1990s emphasis is on freedom of choice, where 'reproductive rights' become consumer rights to choose the characteristics of your child. No doubt the resulting eugenic society would be a little less brutal than those of earlier this century. On the other hand the capabilities of geneticists are much greater now than they were then. Unrestrained, HGE is perfectly capable of producing Lee Silver's dystopia.

In most cases, the public's function with respect to science is to consume its products, or to pay to clean up the mess. But with HGE, there is still time to prevent it, before it becomes reality. We need an international ban on HGE and cloning. There is a good chance this can be achieved, since both are already illegal in many countries. Of course it may be impossible to prevent a scientist, somewhere, from attempting to clone or genetically engineer humans. But there is a great difference between a society which would jail such a scientist and one which would permit HGE to become widespread and respectable. If we fail to act now, we will only have ourselves to blame.

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Trump criticized NATO spending. Here’s what’s really going on

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Trump lodged his complaint during his first official meeting with leaders from the 27 other members of the alliance in Brussels.

"Member nations are still not paying what they should be paying," Trump said. "This is not fair to the people and taxpayers of the United States."

The remarks were surprising because Trump had recently changed his tune on the issue, saying in February that money was "pouring in" thanks to his intervention. He also described the group as "no longer obsolete."

Who's spending?

Trump's remarks on Thursday showed that spending remains a sticking point for his administration.

Here's what's going on:

It's true that NATO members are spending more. But the trend started well before Trump was elected, and it will be many years before some members are in a position to hit the group's spending target.

The group is slowly making progress, however. In 2014, members pledged to increase their outlays, and collective spending increased the following year for the first time in two decades.

Last year, 22 members spent more as a share of national economic output.

"The defense spending pledge was made in 2014. That's when some countries started to increase spending," said Claudia Major, a researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. "Trump became president in 2017. The timeline is clear."

The spending increases are designed to be gradual to protect the economies of members states.

"We have to remember what we actually promised. We didn't promise to spend 2% tomorrow. What we promised was to stop the cuts, gradually increase and then move towards 2%," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said last week.

Stoltenberg said Thursday that NATO would ask member countries to develop national spending plans and report on their progress each year.

"This will be a new tool, to ensure we keep up the momentum and live up to our commitments," he said.

Related: How NATO is funded and who pays what

Many economies in Europe are still suffering from budget cuts imposed as part of austerity programs. Unemployment remains high and while growth is recovering, it remains relatively weak.

"To reach the goal by 2024, some countries, for example Spain, would have to increase their spending by 15% every year. That's not feasible," Major said.

Greece, one of the handful of countries of countries that meets the spending target, has been criticized for years by its creditors for spending too much on overpriced military contracts.

Major suggested NATO countries should focus on efficiency. "Europeans need to spend more, but they also need to spend well. The 2% target doesn't measure the results."

NATO is based on the principle of collective defense: an attack against one or more members is considered an attack against all.

But there is no penalty for countries that don't meet the spending target.

Germany spent 1.19% of its GDP on defense last year, France forked out 1.78%. Canada, Slovenia, Belgium, Spain and Luxembourg all spend less than 1%.

Fear of Russian aggression is driving some of the recent spending splurge. Latvia, which shares a border with Russia, increased its defense budget by 42% in 2016. Its neighbor Lithuania boosted its outlays by 34%.

CNNMoney (London) First published May 25, 2017: 6:04 AM ET

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Trump criticized NATO spending. Here's what's really going on

NATO members to increase defense spending

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The boost comes amid continued criticism from President Donald Trump, who has frequently slammed allies for not meeting NATO defense spending targets.

Twenty-five NATO allies plan to increase spending in real terms in 2017, according to the report.

Speaking to reporters Thursday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called the new money "a significant increase," adding that "European Allies and Canada spent almost $46 billion more on defense" since 2014.

"We are moving in the right direction when it comes to burden-sharing and defense spending," he added.

It's the first time NATO has published its annual report on member defense spending since Trump was inaugurated.

"Twenty-three of the 28 member nations are still not paying what they should be paying and what they are supposed to be paying for their defense. This is not fair to the people and taxpayers of the United States," Trump said during his speech in Brussels following last month's summit.

Montenegro has since joined NATO, becoming the alliance's 29th member.

While other US Presidents have complained that other NATO members have not paid their fair share, Trump has made boosting allied defense spending a central plank of his engagement with the transatlantic alliance.

But now for the first time in years, a sixth country, Romania, has joined the ranks of NATO members who spend 2% of their country's GDP on defense. Romania now joins the US, Greece, the UK, Estonia and Poland in meeting that NATO defense spending target.

Several other countries have also made major jumps in defense spending, with Latvia and Lithuania now projected to increase what they spend from about 1.4% of GDP in 2016 to over 1.7% in 2017. Both Baltic nations are expected to reach the 2% target by 2018.

Trump has claimed credit for some of the defense increases, telling reporters at a news conference with the President of Romania earlier this month that "because of our actions, money is starting to pour into NATO."

Trump also commended Romania's president, Klaus Iohannis, for his country's decision to boost defense investment: "We hope our other NATO allies will follow Romania's lead on meeting their financial obligations and paying their fair share for the cost of defense."

"Other countries are starting to realize that it's time to pay up, and they're doing that. Very proud of that fact," Trump added.

Experts see concerns about Russia as the principle driving factor behind increasing defense budgets. The allies unanimously pledged to meet the 2% target by 2024 at the NATO summit in Wales in 2014 shortly after Russia's military invasion of Crimea.

But NATO officials have also credited Trump with drawing attention to the issue.

"I welcome the focus of the President on increased defense spending. At the same time, it's important to understand that this is implementation of a decision we all made together," Stoltenberg said at a news conference Wednesday in advance of Thursday's meeting of alliance defense ministers.

But while spending has increased among many NATO members, the average for non-US NATO members is still just 1.46% of GDP, well below the 2% target. Germany, a frequent target of Trump's criticism, is projected to increase its defense spending by only 0.02% of GDP, going from 1.2% to 1.22%.

NATO members do fare a bit better in another category: spending money on military equipment.

Thirteen members are projected to hit a key NATO target and spend at least 20% of their defense budgets on equipment. An additional four countries will spend at least 19%. Only seven members met this 20% target in 2014.

Military analysts see the 20% target as indicative of whether countries are investing in the right capabilities to give their militaries a competitive edge.

Romania is projected to spend close to 46% of its defense budget in 2017 on equipment, including ships, mobile missile systems, and armored vehicles, a Romanian military official told CNN.

"It is actually very encouraging to see that we are delivering both on spending cash and on capabilities," Stoltenberg said Thursday following the meeting of defense ministers.

The US has also lobbied NATO members to adopt "national plans" that will in part outline how each member plans to reach the 2% target.

Stoltenberg said Wednesday that the first set of reports on national plans will be completed by December, and reviewed by allied defense ministers in February.

He added the reports will "cover cash, contributions to missions and operations; and the capabilities we need."

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NATO members to increase defense spending

Russia Is Expanding Its Military, but NATO Isn’t Sure Why – Newsweek

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Russias military capabilities are expanding across Europe, but the top military chief of Western defense pact NATO has said Moscows plans remain ambiguous amid a heavily politicized atmosphere between the two leading forces.

General Petr Pavel, a Czech army officer who holds the position of chairman of NATOs Military Committee, said Monday that Russia was advancing in its nuclear and ballistic capabilities as well as in its capacity to send troops across the region, where Moscow and U.S.-led NATO are competing for influence. The two factions have accused one another of crossing lines both figuratively and literally, by effectively launching an arms race, especially along the increasingly militarized borders of the Baltic States. Amid these dueling accusations, however, Pavel said that NATO could not conclusively consider Russias military buildup in recentyears an act of aggression against NATO and its Western allies.

Related: Russian military uses new war weapon to fight ISIS in Syria

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When it comes to capability, there is no doubt that Russia is developing their capabilities both in conventional and nuclear components, Pavel told Politico. When it comes to exercises, their ability to deploy troops forlong distance and to use them effectively quite far away from their own territory, there are no doubts.

When it comes to intent, its not so clear, because we cannot clearly say that Russia has aggressive intents againstNATO,he added.

Russian servicemen march in the Chechen capital of Grozny, Russia, during the Victory Day military parade, marking the 72nd anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, May 9, 2017. Like NATO, Russia has expanded its military presence in Europe, where some nations accuse Moscow of increasingly aggressive behavior. Said Tsarnayev/Reuters

NATO and Russia have pursued clashing agendas in recent years, especially since Russia annexed theCrimean Peninsula amid political unrest in Ukraine in 2014. Russia argued that the move was necessary to protect the sizable ethnic Russian community, but NATO viewed the action, as well as Moscows support for separatists in eastern Ukraine, as an unacceptable breach of its neighbors sovereignty. The fallout led to the eventual creation of four so-called battle groups in the three Baltic States and Poland, all of which have received extensive personnel and armaments from the U.S., Canada and their European allies.

Russia has also fortified its side of the border, which includes the Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad. Last year, Moscow moved nuclear-capable missiles along with other military assets to the coastal territory, which lies between Lithuania and Poland. Both sides of the conflict have also separately held a number of drills in the strategic region. Russias latest drill includes China,and anupcoming exercise with Belarus called Zapad, or West, will utilize up to 100,000 troops in a simulated NATO invasion from the Baltics. Defense Secretary James Mattis echoed local allied leaders in calling the massive maneuvers destabilizing.

While Russias moves have been decried by NATO and its regional partners, Pavel maintains that such a military expansion could not alone be considered an act of war. Russia has long argued that its decision to upgrade and increase its arsenal was taken in defense of what it believes to be an aggressive posturing by the U.S., which has deployed military installations on both sides of Russia, including asophisticated global anti-missile system. Despite Russias 5.9 percent increase in military spending, which totaled $69.2 billion last year, NATOs collective $254 billionwithout the U.S. and Canadastill wildly exceeds Moscows budget, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

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Russia Is Expanding Its Military, but NATO Isn't Sure Why - Newsweek

NATO cyber center, DHS probe Petya attack – FCW.com

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Cybersecurity

The NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence (CCD COE)believes a nation state is likely behind the Petya/NotPetya malware attack and is contemplating response options as a former Pentagon official takes over the alliance's tech and cyber office.

The Department of Homeland Security is also issuing warnings to infrastructure providers and operators of industrial control systems that their operations are at risk due to the dissemination of Petya and its variants.

The CCD COE, which is funded by NATO nations but is not part ofNATOs military command or force structure,released a statement on June 30, saying that accurate attribution is difficult to come by, but that cyber criminals were not behind the Petya attack.

"NotPetya was probably launched by a state actor or a non-state actor with support or approval from a state," stated the center, which is based in Tallinn, Estonia. "Other options are unlikely."

The center said that while a cyber operation with effects similar to an armed attack could trigger an Article 5 military response, so far -- despite the significant impact of the NotPetya attack -- there is no evidence of damage akin to a kinetic strike.

"As important government systems have been targeted, then in case the operation is attributed to a state this could count as a violation of sovereignty," said Tom Minrik, a researcher at the center's Law Branch, in the statement. "Consequently, this could be an internationally wrongful act, which might give the targeted states several options to respond with countermeasures."

The statement argues that NotPetya was more targeted than the WannaCry attack that used the same primary vulnerability -- EternalBlue, which was allegedly stolen from the National Security Agency and leaked in April 2017.

The center said that NotPetya was carried out by a different entity than the WannaCry ransomware attack, and that Petya's ransomware aspect was a cover for a more targeted operation, such as "causing economic losses, sowing chaos, or perhaps testing attack capabilities or showing own power."

"Malware analysissupports the theory that main purpose of the malware was to be destructive because key used for encrypting the hard disk was discarded," the NATO CCD COE stated.

In the wake of the Petya attacks that plagued banks, the Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team warned U.S. infrastructure providers the attack could presage something more ominous.

ICS-CERT's Petya alert, posted on June 30 and updated July 3, warned that the malware had a variant that could be aimed at damaging networks and might not be seeking money. Petya, said the alert, has been known by ICS-CERT as a possible attack vector since 2016.

The new "Nyetya" variant, said a crosslink on CERT's page by Cisco's Talos Intelligence blog, was written by someone looking only to wipe data from disks and not restore it, even if ransom is paid.

"Talos believes that the actors behind Nyetya did not [intend] for the boot sector or the ten sectors that are wiped to be restorable," said the blog. "Thus, Nyetya is intended to be destructive rather than as a tool for financial gain."

Nyetya, said the ICS-CERT, is a new addition to the Petya malware, which keyed on a supply chain attack on a Ukrainian tax preparation software MEDoc.

Ukrainian police seized additional M.E. Doc servers after detecting new suspicious activity as the firm was preparing to release another update. Given the number of cyber attacks against Ukraine that have been attributed to Russia in recent years, officials in Ukraine are accusing Russia of launching this latest attack.

The ongoing investigations into Petya come as Kevin Scheid is taking the reins at NATO's Communications and Information Agency -- which is similar in nature and responsibility to the Pentagon's Defense Information Systems Agency.

Scheid's lengthy resume includes stints at OMB and the CIA, and as DOD's deputy comptroller and acting deputy chief management officer. From 2009-2013 he served as NATO's deputy general manager and director of acquisition of NATO NCI.

Scheid said in an interview with NATO public affairs that his first steps will be a series of deep dives into "areas of finance and the customer-funded regime, personnel management and the contract issues and how that is progressing, in acquisition, as well as the management of the organization."

Scheid served as deputy comptroller at the Pentagon while the U.S. was spending some $700 billion a year on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he will now be looking to squeeze the most he can out of NCI's one-billion Euro budget.

NATO is planning to spend three billion Euros on network modernization, mobility, authentication, cloud and weapon-systems software programs and upgrades in the next two years.

"The NATO Nations are careful with the money they invest in these projects, so every Euro is important," he said. "I think it's one of the big challenges in this job."

Note: This article was corrected on July 5 to make clear that theNATOCooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence is not part of NATO proper.

About the Authors

Sean Carberry is an FCW staff writer covering defense, cybersecurity and intelligence. Prior to joining FCW, he was Kabul Correspondent for NPR, and also served as an international producer for NPR covering the war in Libya and the Arab Spring. He has reported from more than two-dozen countries including Iraq, Yemen, DRC, and South Sudan. In addition to numerous public radio programs, he has reported for Reuters, PBS NewsHour, The Diplomat, and The Atlantic.

Carberry earned a Master of Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, and has a B.A. in Urban Studies from Lehigh University.

Mark Rockwell is a staff writer at FCW.

Before joining FCW, Rockwell was Washington correspondent for Government Security News, where he covered all aspects of homeland security from IT to detection dogs and border security. Over the last 25 years in Washington as a reporter, editor and correspondent, he has covered an increasingly wide array of high-tech issues for publications like Communications Week, Internet Week, Fiber Optics News, tele.com magazine and Wireless Week.

Rockwell received a Jesse H. Neal Award for his work covering telecommunications issues, and is a graduate of James Madison University.

Click here for previous articles by Rockwell. Contact him at mrockwell@fcw.com or follow him on Twitter at @MRockwell4.

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NATO cyber center, DHS probe Petya attack - FCW.com

What has become of the prescient post-WWII dictum ‘Russians out, Americans in, Germans down’? – National Review

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The accomplished and insightful British general Hasting Ismay is remembered today largely because of his famous assessment of NATO, offered when he was the alliances first secretary general. The purpose of the new treaty organization founded in 1952, Ismay asserted, was to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.

Ismay formulated that aphorism at the height of a new Cold War. The Soviet Red Army threatened to overrun Western Europe all the way to the English Channel. And few knew who or what exactly could stop it.

A traditionally isolationist United States was still debatingits proper role after once again intervening on the winning side in a distant catastrophic European war only to see its most powerful ally of WWII, Joseph Stalins Soviet Union, become the victorious democracies most dangerous post-war foe.

A divided Germany had become the new trip wire of the free world against a continental and monolithic nuclear Soviet Union and its bloc.

Nonetheless, note carefully what Ismay did not say.

He did not refer to keeping the Soviet Union out of the Western alliance (which the Soviets had once desired to join, a request that Ismay compared to inviting a burglar onto the police force).

Ismay did not cite the need to ensure that Nazi Germany never returned.

He did not insist that the inclusion of Great Britain was essential to NATOs tripartite mission.

Why?

Ismay, a favorite of Churchills and a military adviser to British governments, had a remarkable sense of history namely that constants such as historical memory, geography, and national character always transcend the politics of the day.

Russians from the days of the czars have wanted to extend their western influence into Europe. Russia was often a threat, given its large population and territory and rich natural resources and it was also more autocratic and more volatile than many of its vulnerable European neighbors.

If alive today, Ismay might remind us that were there not a Vladimir Putin posing a threat to NATOs vulnerable Eastern European members, he might have to be invented.

Ismay instinctively sensed that what made the Soviet Union dangerous in the mid 1950s was not just Stalinism and the Communist system per se, or even its possession of nuclear weapons, but rather the resources of Russia and its historical tendency to embrace anti-democratic absolutism, whether left or right.

With that same insight, Ismay understood that a Europe caught between Germany and Russia would always need a powerful outside ally, one with resources and manpower well beyond those of Great Britain. Further, he accepted that Americans, protected by two oceans, 3,000 miles distant from Europe, and nursed on warnings about pernicious entangling alliances from their Founding Fathers, would always experience periods of nostalgia when it longed to return to its republican America-first roots.

Again, if the movement that helped propel Donald Trump to the White House had not existed, it would have to have been manufactured. Todays Americans are peeved about rich European members shorting NATO of their mandatory contributions. They do not appreciate often dependent European nations ankle-biting the U.S. as a supposedly illiberal imperial power, when that power has long subsidized the defense needs of the shaky European Union socialist experiment.

Ismay apparently sensed that an engaged America would always be a hard sell, especially in the new nuclear age, given that, for less cosmopolitan Americans far from the eastern seaboard, Europe seems a distant perennial headache. For them, it might appear much easier to write off Europe as hopelessly fractious and thus not deserving of yet another bailout requiring American blood and treasure. If the U.S. came late into both World War I and II, it was because of the same sort of weariness with European internecine quarreling, albeit now in a milder form, that we currently see fracturing the EU.

Lastly in his triad of advice, Ismay referred generically to Germany without specifying a contemporary friendly and allied West Germany, juxtaposed to the Soviet-inspired, Communist, and hostile East Germany. Again, the EastWest German fault line existed in Ismays time; yet he reduced all those unique differences of his age into a generic Germany down.

Ismay wrote an engaging wartime memoir from which we can extract much of his thought and experience, so we need not put words into his mouth. But nonetheless, insightful men of his generation did not necessarily look at the rise of National Socialism as entirely a historical aberration, or, in contrast, as a generic murderous ideology that just as easily might have captured the hearts and minds of Frenchmen or British subjects. That historical angst is why both Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev were apprehensive about the idea of German unification in 1989.

Ismay apparently remembered the Franco-Prussian war of 187071, and the horrors of the First and Second World Wars. He concluded that the common denominator was Germanys strong desire to recover from its historical hurt in predictable bouts of aggression and national chauvinism and backed by considerable skill and power.

In Ismays time, such aggression was different from lesser Fascist movements in Italy and Spain, largely because of the central geographic position of a unified young German nation-state, its sizable population, its national wealth, and what we reluctantly in todays politically correct landscape might call German character. That stereotype originates from the time of Caesar and Tacitus: the ability of the German people to create economic, military, and cultural influence well beyond what one might expect from the actual size of even an impressive German population or geography. And such dynamism is often expressed by eyeing neighbors spiritual or concrete territory.

Once again, if there were not Angela Merkels increasingly defiant Germany, it too would have to be created. Some in the United States were troubled that Angela Merkel, from a beer hall in Munich no less, recently lashed out at the United States and promised that Germany might just have to navigate between the U.S. and Russia quite a thought from a Germany once saved largely by the United States from its own carnivorousness and later likely Communist servitude.

Of course, what is disconcerting today about Germany is not the rise of totalitarian or nationalist movements, at least not as we usually use those terms. Indeed, in most respects, post-war Germany has been a model democracy. But there is a common denominator in Germanys most recent controversies, with disturbing historical roots that might further amplify the logic of Ismays prescient Germany down. Germany might be pursuing a Eurocentric agenda, it might proudly declare itself an open-borders host for millions of impoverished immigrants, it might be at the vanguard of green energy, but it is doing all that in ways of Lord Ismays Germany of old.

The central bank of Germany de facto controls European finances. It uses the euro as a weaker currency than would otherwise be true of the Deutsche Mark to conduct a mercantile export economy, providing credit to weaker European economies to buy Germans goods that they otherwise could ill afford. The impoverished southern Mediterranean economies are essentially in hock now to Germany, and Germany apparently can neither be paid back its original loans nor write off the debts. In other words, German won all the chips of the European Union poker game and it no longer need play with its broke rivals.

No one quite knows the strange driving force behind Angela Merkels demand that the European Union open its borders to millions of mostly young men from the war-torn Middle East and the chaotic lands of North Africa. Cynics might suggest that a shrinking Germany wants young, cheap manual laborers. Post-war guilt may play a role as Germanys cure for its past becomes nearly as obsessive as the behavior that led to the disease in the first place.

German postmodern multiculturalism encourages a nave acceptance of millions of unassimilated Middle Eastern Muslims, and it demands the same from neighbors without Germanys resources. A largely atheistic or agnostic Germany also has few religious worries about Islamic immigrants, given that secular affluence and leisure long ago proved far more deleterious to German Christianity than did radical Islam.

Germany saw Brexit as an intolerable affront to its own leadership. Apparently the British voter saw the increasingly non-democratic trajectory of the European Union as a future challenge to its own independence. If southern Europeans are becoming serfs to Germany, and Eastern Europeans its clients, and Western Europeans anxious subordinates, then the British across the channel thought they had to get out while the getting was good.

Recent Pew international polls reveal that Germany of all the countries of the European Union is by far the most anti-American, with scarcely 52 percent expressing a positive appraisal of the United States well before Donald Trump ran for office. Media polls show that the German press ran the most negative appraisals of Trump of all global news (98 percent of all coverage was critical). A fair summary of current German views of the United States would be not much different from the stereotypes of the 1930s: undisciplined, prone to wild swings in policy, a bastardized and commercialized culture of poorly informed and highly indebted consumers.

Ismays generation welcomed the re-creation of Germany as a positive democratic force both in the soon-to-be-created European Common Market and the nascent NATO alliance. But it did not discard Ismays idea of Germany down. Instead, there was a wink-and-nod acceptance that a divided Germany was a safe Germany. NATO and the common Soviet threat would encourage ties of solidarity. And just in case they did not, weaker and smaller traditional rivals, France and Great Britain, would possess nuclear weapons and stronger and far larger Germany would not.

What would Ismay say of his current tripartite formula?

He would warn about what happens when NATO withers on the vine: Russian is a bit in, America is somewhat out, and Germany more up than down as Ismay feared when he helped offer the remedy of NATO at its creation.

READ MORE: The Price of American First How Trump Should Reform NATO Its Long Past Time for Our NATO Allies to Meet Their Defense-Spending Commitments

NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, to appear in October from Basic Books.

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What has become of the prescient post-WWII dictum 'Russians out, Americans in, Germans down'? - National Review