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Liu Xiaobo is China’s sacrificial lamb – South China Morning Post

Posted on June 27, 2017 by Danzig

State repression may be rational, a means to a higher goal. Or it may be vindictive. In the case of the authorities jailing of Liu Xiaobo, its clearly the latter. The dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate has been granted medical parole after being diagnosed with liver cancer.

Its been said that his 11-year jail term imposed in late 2009 for co-authoring the dissident Charter 08 statement was Beijings way of killing the chicken to warn the monkey. But his more serious offence seems to have been his winning the Nobel Peace Prize after his sentencing. Beijing had always wanted a Chinese citizen to win a Nobel for national pride, but not one it had sent to jail. In 2012, it had its wish when novelist Mo Yan, a senior figure in the official literary establishment, won the prize for literature.

Liu Xiaobo reunited with family outside jail for first time in 8 years

Any efforts to treat Liu more leniently would have been for naught, because the peace prize represented a profound affront to the central government. In response, it severed diplomatic ties with Norway. Relations were only fully restored last December.

Liu, of course, deserved much better. For all his lifelong criticism and dissent against the state, he did it one big favour. As a key player in the 1989 Tiananmen protests, he criticised student leaders such as Chai Ling for calling for bloodshed.

When the military crackdown started, he and Taiwan-born dissident musician Hou Dejian negotiated with soldiers and convinced reluctant student protesters to leave the square voluntarily, thereby enabling the authorities to claim subsequently that no one was killed at the symbolic heart of the nation. Liu is usually linked to pro-democracy figures like Fang Lizhi and Wei Jinsheng. But his literary output has been prodigious, for someone who has only known two types of Chinese institutions school and prison. His Western-inspired humanism and liberalism are close to those of Hu Shi, the philosopher, linguist and diplomat. His cultural iconoclasm was inspired by Lu Xun, Chinas greatest modern writer.

Who is Chinese Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo and whats his story?

These men represent a path to national rejuvenation through humanist moral values. Most Chinese today, led by the central government, prefer a more materialistic path through the pursuit of power and wealth. Perhaps in the future, we will learn that the two are not mutually exclusive.

Perhaps in the future, speaking out will no longer need to be an act of moral and mortal bravery.

Liu Xiaobo is China's sacrificial lamb - South China Morning Post

Tycoon’s Claims Reverberate in China Despite Censorship and Thin … – New York Times

Posted on June 27, 2017 by Danzig

But it is already near impossible to hold a private conversation with anyone in the Chinese capital who takes an interest in politics without talk turning to Mr. Guo and his unverified insider tales of elite corruption and power plays. People here have followed each unveiling of Mr. Guos often long-winded allegations by creeping around Chinas barricade of internet censorship.

I dont think the party has ever had a big businessman so boldly challenge it like this, said Bao Tong, a former senior aide to Zhao Ziyang, a former party leader who was toppled from power during the 1989 protests. How to respond is a dilemma.

Mr. Guo, who also goes by the name Miles Kwok, has delighted in doling out his allegations on a lively Twitter feed as well as in hourslong talks and interviews broadcast, sometimes live, on YouTube and Mingjing, a Chinese news website based in the United States. All those sites are blocked in China.

During a broadcast in mid-June, which went on for more than four hours, Mr. Guo seemed to enjoy teasing the interviewer.

I dont get how youre just sitting there. Are you made from flesh and blood? Mr. Guo said as he laid out pictures and diagrams that he said proved his claims. Such huge news. Why dont you take off your clothes and get excited?

Mr. Guos stories have caused a stir in part because he socialized with security officials before he left China several years ago and has shown a familiarity with whos who in elite party families. But many of his recent claims are unverified and disputed, and Mr. Guo has sometimes left out important details needed to test the accusations.

Yet even without confirmation, the allegations appear vexing for Mr. Xi.

Mr. Guo has described himself as a paladin defending Mr. Xi and even acting indirectly on his orders. But the billionaire has also asserted that Mr. Xis plans for choosing a new leadership team for his second five-year term at the coming congress are mired in conflict. There is little evidence of that, but Mr. Guo has thrown a firecracker into the careful choreography of the lead-up, some experts said.

No matter whether these allegations are bogus or exaggerated, they have become a distraction, said Deng Yuwen, a current affairs commentator in Beijing. People who dislike Xi the democratic opposition, cadres unhappy with his policies are also finding something to focus on in Guo Wengui.

Much of the speculation has focused on the future of Mr. Wang, one of the most powerful men in China and the primary target of Mr. Guos ire. Party insiders have said Mr. Xi may want Mr. Wang to stay in office, bucking the established retirement rules.

But Mr. Guo wants Mr. Wang out and has claimed again and again that his extended family has amassed staggering wealth through a web of companies. At a minimum, the pounding has bruised Mr. Wangs reputation among members of the urban elite who have heard Mr. Guos claims. The state news media has long presented him as an incorruptible graft buster with the courage to catch tigers corrupt officials in the partys high echelons.

What if the tiger hunter turns out to be a tiger? asked Mr. Bao, the former senior aide. How do you explain that?

Still, Mr. Guos claims are uncorroborated and have been challenged even by some critics of the party.

Much of what Guo Wengui says is incorrect or speculative, said Zhang Lifan, a businessman and liberal intellectual in Beijing who has jousted online with Mr. Guo. Hes just letting off fireworks to create a ruckus.

Asked about Mr. Guos allegations, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said he was a crime suspect whom China had put on an Interpol list, and it referred questions to the legal authorities. The State Council Information Office, the government agency that deals with such inquiries, did not respond to faxed questions.

Leaders in Beijing face a quandary: Openly disputing Mr. Guo would give him more prominence, while ignoring him could be read by some as a sign that he is telling the truth, several experts said.

You cant give him attention, but you cant ignore him, either, Mr. Bao said. You might have been able to entirely ignore Guo Wengui before, when society was shut off and had no access to information. But that doesnt work now. You cant act dumb.

Mr. Guo, his business and his employees have been assailed by a wave of lawsuits in China and the United States claiming unpaid wages and debts, fraud and libel. The authorities have also channeled vitriol against Mr. Guo through Global Times, a tabloid that the party often uses to attack its foes.

Hes lied so much that the lies dont match up, and Guo Wengui has totally given up on logic, the newspaper said this month.

Still, the editorial nodded to Mr. Guos acumen as a showman: It must be said that hes a spectacle, and at home and abroad there are those who loathe Chinas political system and get a kick out of political rumors enjoying taking in this spectacle.

Though some opponents of the partys rule inside China and abroad have embraced Mr. Guo as a folk hero, others warn he is an opportunist who could drag democracy advocates into perilous undercurrents of party infighting.

Mr. Guo has denounced some of these critics, accusing them of lacking the backbone to support him.

Hes become a divisive force in the democratic movement abroad, said Li Weidong, a former Chinese magazine editor living in New Jersey who has fought with Mr. Guo. Theres a clash of views over whether to back him or keep a distance.

Much of the whispering in Beijing has fixated on Mr. Guos claim that he still has powerful patrons inside the party, including an old leader whom he has not named.

But no Chinese leader is likely to make common cause with a volatile, talkative exile like Mr. Guo, said Minxin Pei, a professor at Claremont McKenna College in California who studies Chinese politics.

Those attempting to do that must be mad since they can get caught easily and suffer the consequences, he said.

Professor Pei added that Mr. Guo was unlikely to derail Mr. Xis plans for the next leadership. For his allegations to disrupt these preparations, there need to be at least a critical mass of senior officials who demand an investigation, he said. Under the current conditions in Beijing, it is inconceivable that there are people in Beijing who dare to take such risks.

Michael Forsythe contributed reporting from New York, and Adam Wu contributed research from Beijing.

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Tycoon's Claims Reverberate in China Despite Censorship and Thin ... - New York Times

‘Get Out or We Will Kill You’: Jewish Students Allege Censorship and Harassment in Campus Lawsuit – Reason (blog)

Posted on June 27, 2017 by Danzig

YouTubeIn a federal lawsuit filed last week, a group of Jewish plaintiffs allege that San Francisco State University has systematically turned a blind eye toand in some instances actively facilitatedcensorship and harassment of Jewish students and speakers on the public university's campus. The lawsuit points, in particular, to the 2016 disruption of a speech by Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, numerous incidents of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel speech on campus, as well as an incident in which the Jewish student organization Hillel was allegedly banned from a student fair.

Opinions about the lawsuit fall along predictable dividing lines. The editorial board of J., the Jewish News of Northern California, praised the suit and argued that the protesters at the Nir Barkat event had "trampled the free speech rights of Jewish students." On the other hand, Dima Khalidi of Palestine Legal called the Barkat protest "political speech that is protected by the First Amendment" and said that "the complaint is going to fail."

Both sides have a point. The lawsuit raises real concerns about the treatment of Jewish students at SFSU. But the plaintiffs seem to want it both ways: Even as the suit contends that SFSU is violating the free speech rights of Jewish students, it also demands that the university censor protected speech by Palestinian students and their allies, citing anti-Jewish harassment.

As Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote, "the freedom to speak and freedom to hear are inseparable; they are two sides of the same coin." If, as the lawsuit alleges, SFSU officials told campus police to "stand down" while anti-Israel protesters disrupted Nir Barkat's speech, the university may indeed have violated students' First Amendment rights to invite and hear a speaker of their choosing.

Video footage of Barkat's attempt to speak at SFSU last year shows protesters engaging in loud, sustained chanting while students attending the speech huddle around a seated Barkat in an attempt to hear him. While protest is indeed protected by the First Amendment (as is a normal level of "booing" and brief interruptions from the audience), the right to protest does not extend to the right to be so vocally disruptive, for such a prolonged period of time, that the speaker cannot be heard.

And if, as the suit alleges, the university allowed the Hillel student group to be excluded from tabling at a university-sponsored fair because of the organization's viewpoint, that too could constitute a First Amendment violation at a public university like SFSU.

Moving from the First Amendment to the harassment claims, some of the speech cited by the plaintiffs may have crossed the line from protected speech into unprotected threats, such as counter-protesters allegedly yelling "get out or we will kill you" at Jewish students participating in a Hillel-sponsored peace rally.

Other parts of the lawsuit, however, point to examples of clearly protected speech and expression as grounds for the claim that a "hostile environment" exists for Jewish students on campus. In alleging that the university has been deliberately indifferent to a racially hostile environment, the plaintiffs point to examples of constitutionally protected political expression such as posters featuring a picture of a dead baby with the caption "Made in IsraelPalestinian Children Meat, Slaughtered According to Jewish Rites Under American License," as well as students holding placards proclaiming "my heroes have always killed colonizers" and "resistance is not terrorism" alongside portraits of Leila Khaled, the first female airplane hijacker. It is not difficult to see why such speech would offend many students, but asking a government institution like SFSU to police this kind of political rhetoric in the name of preventing a "hostile environment" is a prescription for both First Amendment violations and political side-choosing.

In short: it's complicated. If the truth of the allegations is proven in court, the plaintiffs have some very real grievances about some of the university's conduct and, certainly, about what J. refers to as the "selective outrage" when it comes to the university's response to Jewish students on campus versus other students who claim to feel silenced or threatened. But in other ways, the suit goes too far, citing constitutionally protected political speech and expression as examples of harassment.

This fight should never have had to go to court in the first place. A university campus should be a place where people who disagree about important issues can discuss their differences openly, not a place where opposing views are shouted down, threats are tossed across protest lines, and both sides work to suppress the speech of their opponents.

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'Get Out or We Will Kill You': Jewish Students Allege Censorship and Harassment in Campus Lawsuit - Reason (blog)

Soviet censorship: How did the USSR control the public? – Russia Beyond the Headlines

Posted on June 27, 2017 by Danzig

Russian authorities are currently discussing blocking the Telegram messaging app, as it can be used by terrorists. We examine cases from the past when the Soviet elite banned different information sources.

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State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting of the USSR Chairman Sergey Lapin during a TV management meeting, 1973 / Lev Nosov/RIA Novosti

The Bolsheviks seized power in Russia in 1917 while championing freedom, yet one of their first decisions was to limit free speech through harsh censorship. In early November 1917, the Soviet government signed the Decree on Press which prohibited publishing any bourgeois articles criticizing the Bolsheviks authority.

Peasants reading a newspaper which published Lenin's decrees on land and on peace, 1918. / RIA Novosti

As the years passed political censorship grew stronger, reaching its peak under Joseph Stalins reign. After his death the state relaxed its stance but censorship remained until Mikhail Gorbachev declared glasnost in the late 1980s.

As the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (GSE) puts it, Soviet censorship had a different character than the one existing in bourgeois states and aimed only at protecting the interests of the working class. This is a bold statement, especially given the fact the Soviet elite employed censorship for its own bloody gain, most notably during Stalins Great Purge.

A meeting of the St. Petersburg chapter of the Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class in February 1897. Shortly after the picture was taken the whole group was arrested. / Nadezhda Krupskaya

The physical eradication of Stalin's political opponents was followed by their obliteration from all forms of pictorial existence, British historian David King wrote in his book The Commissar Vanishes. Retouchers worked hard erasing traces of fallen leaders from all photographs and images. For instance, Nikolay Yezhov, an infamous chief of the NKVD (secret police organization, the predecessor of the KGB) who masterminded the mass political repressions in 1936-1938, fell out with Stalin and found himself in the hands of the secret police in 1940, before being executed. After that Yezhov disappeared from all photographs with Stalin.

The same happened to another notorious NKVD chief - Lavrentiy Beria. One of Stalins most trusted allies, he was left high and dry after his patrons demise in 1953 and was also executed. This was followed by an insistent government request that all people who owned a GSE containing an article about Beria must replace it with a revised version, which had no mention of the ill-fated official.

In 1921, the young Soviet government created the Glavlit (General Directorate for the Protection of State Secrets in the Press) which for decades remained the main instrument of controlling literature. Glavlits censors decided if a book was published in the USSR, or if it was banned.

As a result, Soviet citizens could not read many books, some of which are now regarded as classics - including Mikhail Bulgakovs Master and Margarita and Boris Pasternaks Doctor Zhivago, not to mention most works by Alexander Solzhenitsyn that criticized the Soviet regime. The circulation of books written by migr writers who had fled Soviet Russia were, of course, prohibited - robbing the public of Ivan Bunin and Vladimir Nabokovs novels, to name just two authors.

Tape recorder Tembr MAG-59M, 1964 (attributed as self-made). / State museum of political history of Russia

Nevertheless, the Soviet government wasnt able to completely eradicate literature it deemed dangerous. Through the ages, people opposing censorship have circulated handmade copies of banned literature. In the Soviet Union, this was called samizdat (self-published) and scores of illegal books were enjoyed by readers as a result.

Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the USSR from 1953 to 1964, was more liberal than Stalin, whose repressive policies he condemned in his secret speech in 1956. According to the Russian historian Leonid Katsva, Khrushchev even thought of abolishing ideological censorship in art, but changed his mind.

Artists Avdey Ter-Oganyan and Yuri Palaichev with his 'New Nude', Taganrog, 1988. / Avdey Ter-Oganyan's archive

One of the factors that influenced Khruschevs decision was his encounter with the avant-garde. After witnessing the New Reality exhibition performed by young artists, Khrushchev became very angry with their unrealistic style of painting and started shouting: Soviet people dont need all this! We declare war on you!

Under the rule of Leonid Brezhnev (1964 to 1982) the state continued to oppress artists working outside the realm of social realism. For example, in 1974 the government demolished an unofficial avant-garde exhibition in the suburbs of Moscow using bulldozers and water cannons. The event became known as the Bulldozer Exhibition.

Throughout the Cold War both the West and the USSR were trying to influence each others population by providing alternative points of view. In 1946, the BBC started broadcasting radio services for Soviet citizens. Voice of America, Radio Liberty, and Deutsche Welle all followed suit a couple of years later.

Unsurprisingly, the Kremlin was not happy with Western media trying to meddle with Soviet citizens so it started blocking radio frequencies used by foreign stations. According to Rimantas Pleikis, a radio journalist from Lithuania, the USSR possessed the most powerful and wide scale anti-radio system in the world.

But even that system had cracks. Those who wanted to continue tuning in to the foreign voices and alternative opinions - along with jazz and rock music - found a way. Finally, in 1988 Mikhail Gorbachev officially stopped blocking Western radio stations.

Excerpt from:

Soviet censorship: How did the USSR control the public? - Russia Beyond the Headlines

David French: The Threat To Free Speech – Commentary Magazine

Posted on June 27, 2017 by Danzig

From the July/August COMMENTARY symposium.

The following is an excerpt from COMMENTARYs symposium on the threat to free speech:

Were living in the midst of a troubling paradox. At the exact same time that First Amendment jurisprudence has arguably never been stronger and more protective of free expression, millions of Americans feel they simply cant speak freely. Indeed, talk to Americans living and working in the deep-blue confines of the academy, Hollywood, and the tech sector, and youll get a sense of palpable fear. Theyll explain that they cant say what they think and keep their jobs, their friends, and sometimes even their families.

The government isnt cracking down or censoring; instead, Americans are using free speech to destroy free speech. For example, a social-media shaming campaign is an act of free speech. So is an economic boycott. So is turning ones back on a public speaker. So is a private corporation firing a dissenting employee for purely political reasons. Each of these actions is largely protected from government interference, and each one represents an expression of the speakers ideas and values.

The problem, however, is obvious. The goal of each of these kinds of actions isnt to persuade; its to intimidate. The goal isnt to foster dialogue but to coerce conformity. The result is a marketplace of ideas that has been emptied of all but the approved ideological vendorsat least in those communities that are dominated by online thugs and corporate bullies. Indeed, this mindset has become so prevalent that in places such as Portland, Berkeley, Middlebury, and elsewhere, the bullies and thugs have crossed the line from protectedalbeit abusivespeech into outright shout-downs and mob violence.

But theres something else going on, something thats insidious in its own way. While politically correct shaming still has great power in deep-blue America, its effect in the rest of the country is to trigger a furious backlash, one characterized less by a desire for dialogue and discourse than by its own rage and scorn. So were moving toward two Americasone that ruthlessly (and occasionally illegally) suppresses dissenting speech and the other that is dangerously close to believing that the opposite of political correctness isnt a fearless expression of truth but rather the fearless expression of ideas best calculated to enrage your opponents.

The result is a partisan feedback loop where right-wing rage spurs left-wing censorship, which spurs even more right-wing rage. For one side, a true free-speech culture is a threat to feelings, sensitivities, and social justice. The other side waves high the banner of free speech to sometimes elevate the worst voices to the highest platformsnot so much to protect the First Amendment as to infuriate the hated snowflakes and trigger the most hysterical overreactions.

The culturally sustainable argument for free speech is something else entirely. It reminds the cultural left of its own debt to free speech while reminding the political right that a movement allegedly centered around constitutional values cant abandon the concept of ordered liberty. The culture of free speech thrives when all sides remember their moral responsibilitiesto both protect the right of dissent and to engage in ideological combat with a measure of grace and humility.

Read the entire symposium on the threat to free speech in the July/August issue of COMMENTARY here.

A doctrine is taking shape.

With all of Washington consumed by the effort to craft and pass health-care legislation, the Trump White House appeared to catch the countrys political establishment off guard when it announced that the crisis in Syria was again reaching a crescendo.

In a prepared statement, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer revealed that the Bashar al-Assad regime was engaged in potential preparations to execute another chemical attack on civilians. [If] Mr. Assad conducts another mass murder attack using chemical weapons, he and his military will pay a heavy price, the statement read.

Hours later, the Pentagon expounded upon the nature of the threat. We have seen activity at Shayrat Airfield, said Captain Jeff Davis, associated with chemical weapons. The Shayrat Air Base outside the city of Homs is the same airfield that was targeted in April with 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles.

For all the frustration over the Trump administrations failure to craft a coherent strategy to guide American engagement in the Syrian theater, the White House has communicated to the Assad regime a set of clear parameters in which it is expected to operate. That is a marked improvement over the approach taken by Barack Obamas administration.

When American forces in Syria or those under the American defense umbrella are threatened by the Assad regime or its proxies, American forces will take action. On several occasions, U.S. forces have made kinetic defensive strikes on pro-government militias, and that policy recently expanded to include Syrian regular forces. On June 18, a Syrian Su-22 fighter-bomber was destroyed when it struck American-backed fighters laying siege to the ISIS-held city of Raqqa.

The Trump administration has also telegraphed to Damascus the limited conditions that would lead to offensive operations against regime targets. At the risk of contradicting his campaign-trail promise to scale back American commitments abroad, President Trump was convinced at the urging of his closest advisors and family members following the April 4 chemical attacks to execute strikes on the Assad regime. His administration was quick to communicate that this was a one-time punitive measure, not a campaign. There would be no follow-on action.

That directive may no longer be operative. With the release of this latest statement warning Damascus against renewed chemical strikes on rebel targets, the triggers that led to strikes on regime targets in April are hardening into a doctrine. The United States will act aggressively to maintain a global prohibition on the use of weapons of mass destruction. There is enough consistency and clarity to Trumps approach that it might amount to deterrence. Even if the Assad regime is not deterred, onlookers may yet be.

This is a doctrine that Barack Obama flirted with, but declined only at the last minute to adopt. As the ban against these weapons erodes, other tyrants will have no reason to think twice about acquiring poison gas, and using them, Obama explained to the nation in a primetime address on September 10, 2013. Over time, our troops would again face the prospect of chemical warfare on the battlefield. And it could be easier for terrorist organizations to obtain these weapons, and to use them to attack civilians.

This was and remains a prophetic warning. ISIS militants have already deployed chemical munitions against Iraqi troops and their American and Australian advisors. An inauspicious future typified by despots unafraid to unleash indiscriminate and unconventional weapons on the battlefield would surely have come to fruition had the West not eventually made good on Obamas threats.

Obama framed his about-face as an odd species of consistency. He deferred to Congress in a way he hadnt before and wouldnt after while simultaneously empowering Moscow to mediate the conflict. This laid the groundwork for Russian armed intervention in Syria just two years later. In contrast, Donald Trump eschewed the rote dance of coalition-building and public diplomacy. Instead, he ordered the unilateral, punitive strike on a rogue for behaving roguishly. And hes willing to do it again if need be.

That approach will prove refreshing to Americas Sunni allies who, by the end of the last administration, were entirely disillusioned with the Obama presidency. Obamas waltz back from his red line undermined the Gulf States and shattered hopes in Syria that the West was prepared to enforce the proscription on mass civilian slaughter. In the week of war drums leading up to the anti-climax of September 10, 2013, a wave of defections from the Syrian Army suggested that a post-Assad future was possible. Today, few think such a prospect is conceivable. And because the insurgency against Assads regime will not end with Assad in power, an equal number cannot foresee a stop to the Syrian civil war anytime soon.

These circumstances have led some to criticize the Trump administration. Perhaps the behaviors theyve resolved to punish are too narrowly defined. Maybe the White House should rethink regime change? It is, after all, not so much a civil war anymore but a great power conflict. American troopsto say nothing of Russian, Turkish, British, French, and a host of othersare already on the ground in Syria in numbers and at cross purposes. Still others contend that even this level of engagement in the Levant is irresponsible. They argue the Syrian quagmire is to be avoided at all costs.

These are all legitimate criticisms, but only now can there be a rational debate over a concrete Syria policy.

For more than three years, Barack Obama tried to have his cake and eat it, too. He presented himself as sagaciously unmoved by the political pressuring of Washingtons pro-war establishment, which salivates over the prospect of lucrative strikes on an alien nation. At the same time, the Obama White House cast itself as a reluctant defender of civilization in the Middle East and elsewhereperhaps even too quick to deploy men and ordnance. This was only nonsense retrofitted onto Barack Obamas pursuit of a face-saving way to retreat from his self-set red line.

The Trump administrations policy in Syria is an improvement over Obamas if only because it deserves to be called a policy. Love it or dont, at least Americans are no longer being gaslighted into debating the merits of phantasms invented by political strategists in Washington talk shops.

This isn't about politics.

On June 23, the Washington Post ran a comprehensive article reviewing the Russian interference in last years presidential election, which involved stealing emails from Democratic Party accounts and releasing them via Wikileaks. The outstanding work of reporters Greg Miller, Ellen Nakashima, and Adam Entous shows that there was a bipartisan, cascading failure to respond adequately to this attack on our democracy. That attack began under President Obama and is continuing under President Trump.

The Post revealed that the CIA had sourcing deep inside the Russian government showing that Vladimir Putin had personally tasked his intelligence agencies with audacious objectivesdefeat or at least damage the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, and help elect her opponent, Donald Trump.

Obama was informed of this while the election was underway, but he did little.

the Obama administration secretly debated dozens of options for deterring or punishing Russia, including cyberattacks on Russian infrastructure, the release of CIA-gathered material that might embarrass Putin and sanctions that officials said could crater the Russian economy.

But in the end, in late December,Obama approveda modest package combining measures that had been drawn up to punish Russia for other issues expulsions of 35 diplomats and the closure of two Russian compounds with economic sanctions so narrowly targeted that even those who helped design them describe their impact as largely symbolic.

The article went on to quote a former senior Obama administration official involved in White House deliberations on Russia who said: It is the hardest thing about my entire time in government to defend. I feel like we sort of choked.

In fairness to Obama, he tried to seek bipartisan support to expose Russias machinations and found no interest among the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill, who were plainly more worried about losing an election than about this Russian attack on our democracy. Obama knew that if he had spoken out more forcefully, Trump and his Republican supporters would have hammered him for allegedly trying to rig the election for Crooked Hillary.

That doesnt excuse Obamas failure of leadership. He was the commander-in-chief; it was his responsibility. It does make clear, however, that he was worried not just about the possibility of worsening relations with Russia but also about being charged with a partisan interference in the election.

The failure to react more strongly to the Russian hack extends now into the Trump administration. Trumps reaction to the Post story is indicative of his troubling mindset. The day before the Post story came out, Trump claimed on Twitter that reports of Russian interferenceas unanimously attested to by his own intelligence agenciesare all a big Dem HOAX! Following the publication of the Posts story, he tweeted: Just out: The Obama Administration knew far in advance of November 8th about election meddling by Russia. Did nothing about it. WHY?

Given that the Obama administration had publicly called out Russian interference in October, its hard to imagine why this would be news to Trump now.

The benefit of the doubt ends there. Trumps next reaction was purely cynical. Since the Obama Administration was told way before the 2016 Election that the Russians were meddling, why no action? Focus on them, not T! So when Trump is accused of collusion with the Russians or other wrong-doing, he claims that the entire Russian operation is a hoax. But when he wants to accuse Obama of wrongdoing, then he stipulates that the hacking was real.

For Trump, this is a purely partisan issue. The Democrats are out to get to him, to de-legitimize his election victory, and he will say or do anything to stop themeven if that means denying the reality of the Russian operation one moment and admitting it the next. There is no indication that he has treated this attack with the gravity it deserves, which makes it more likely that the Russians will be up to their old tricks in future elections, just as they have been doing recently in Europe.

Trump is right to castigate Obama for not doing more, but the same criticism now applies to him.

How the West was dug.

Next Tuesday marks the beginning of the 242nd year of the independence of the United States, and the day will be justly celebrated with parades,picnics, and fireworks from Hawaii to Maine.

But next Tuesday will also mark another anniversary of surpassing historicalimportance to this country. For it was on July 4th, 1817, 200 years ago,that the first shovelful of dirt was dug and the construction of the ErieCanal began. Finished eight years later (ahead of schedule and under budget)it united the east coast with the fast-growing trans-Appalachian west.

It was a monumental undertaking. At 363 miles, the canal was more than twiceas long as any earlier canal. (The Canal du Midi in southern France was 140miles in length.) Thomas Jefferson thought the project little short ofmadness. But Governor Dewitt Clinton saw the possibilities and went ahead,artfully handling the very considerable political opposition and arrangedthe financing (much of the money was raised in London).

Clinton was quickly proved right and the Erie Canal can claim to be the most consequential public works project in American history. Before the canal,bulk goods such as grain could reach the east coast population centers onlyby going down the Mississippi River and out through the port of New Orleans.With the canal, it could travel via the Great Lakes and the canal to theport of New York. Before the canal, it had taken six weeks to move a barrelof flour from Buffalo to New York City, at the cost of $100. With the canal,it took six days and cost $6.00. The result was an economic revolution.

Within a few years, New York City had become, in the words of Oliver WendellHolmes (the doctor and poet, not his son the Supreme Court justice), thattongue that is licking up the cream of commerce of a continent. The cityexploded in size, expanding northwards at the rate of about two blocks ayear. That may not seem like much, but Manhattan is about two miles wide,and thus the city was adding about ten miles of street front every year, apace that continued for decades.

The cost of the canal was paid off in only eight years and thereafter becamea cash cow for the state. This allowed it to weather the crash of 1837 andthe following depression, which bankrupted the state of Pennsylvania andcrippled Philadelphias banks. New York quickly became the countrysundisputed financial center, which it has been ever since.

And while goods were moving eastwards, people were moving westward throughthe canal as farmers deserted the thin, stony soils of New England for therich, deep loams of Ohio and Indiana. This New England diaspora moved thepolitical center of the country westwards.

The canal era in this country was a brief one as railroads, beginning in the1830s, began to spread. But the Erie Canal continued to function as anartery of commerce until the 1970s and is still used today for things that,usually for reasons of size, cannot be moved by highway or railroad. And itremains a popular avenue for recreational boating.

So Americans should remember Dewitt Clinton next week just as we rememberWashington, Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin. For New Yorkers, that goesdouble. For it was the Erie Canal that put the empire in the Empire State.

The travel ban is saved, for now.

President Trump got a much-needed win today when the Supreme Court allowed part of his executive order on immigration to take effect, vacating stays issued by lower courts. The justices will decide the fate of the executive order in the fall. Judging by todays ruling, its possible that Trump will triumph, at least in part, if only because the president has broad authority to restrict entry into the United States by anyone who is not a citizen or permanent resident. But even if Trumps executive order proves to be legal, that doesnt mean that its wise or necessary from a security standpoint.

The Department of Homeland Security can now keep out nationals of six Muslim countriesIran, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemenas long as those nationals cannot credibly claim a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States. Prepare for more litigation to figure out what constitutes a bona fide relationship, a new, arbitrary standard invented by the justices to modify the arbitrary standard invented by President Trump. What does any of this have to do with the dictates of counter-terrorismthe ostensible justification for the travel ban? Not much.

There is no history in the United States of terrorist acts committed by nationals of the six countries in question. As a Cato analyst noted, back when the ban still applied to Iraq as well as the six other countries: Nationals of the seven countries singled out by Trump have killed zero people in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil between 1975 and 2015.

In justifying the travel ban, Trumps original executive order on January 27 made its main argument the 9/11 attacks, when State Department policy prevented consular officers from properly scrutinizing the visa applications of several of the 19 foreign nationals who went on to murder nearly 3,000 American. But the 9/11 attacks were committed by 15 Saudis, 2 Emiratis, 1 Egyptian, and 1 Lebanesenone of whom would be covered under the Trump travel ban. Thats not an argument for enlarging the ban but merely a commentary on the fact that the executive order as crafted is utterly disconnected from any actual security threat.

This reality is further underlined by the fact that when the original executive order was issued on January 27, the Trump administration claimed that it had to suspend all entry for nationals of seven Muslim countries for 90 daysand of all refugees from all over the world for 120 days. The stated intent of that order was to ensure the proper review and maximum utilization of available resources for the screening of foreign nationals, and to ensure that adequate standards are established to prevent infiltration by foreign terrorists or criminals.

Well, its now been 150 days since that executive order was issuedand we have not experienced any attacks by the hordes of terrorists that Trump claimed were waiting to rush into the United States when his executive order was suspended. And yet the administration is now arguing that it needs at least 90 more days to come up with vetting procedures for the entry of nationals of the six Muslim countries in question. Why havent the previous 150 days sufficed to make entry requirements as stringent as they need to be? In reality, there is no evidence that Homeland Security has had to strengthen already rigorous admission standards significantly.

President Trump gave away his real motives for pursuing the travel ban, in spite of the original justification lapsing, when he tweeted in favor of it on June 3 just minutes after a terrorist attack in London. We need to be smart, vigilant and tough, he wrote. We need the courts to give us back our rights. We need the Travel Ban as an extra level of safety! When Trump sent that tweet, the nationality of the attackers was not known. (They would subsequently be identified as a British citizen born in Pakistan, an Italian citizen born in Morocco, and a Moroccan who had been granted residency in the European Union because of his marriage to an Irish woman.)

All that anyone knew at that point is that the attackers were Muslims. So Trump was clearly signaling that his real worry is not about the six countries in questionnone of which had anything to do with the London attackbut with Muslims in general. In keeping with his campaign rhetoric, which catered to anti-Muslim bigotry, Trump evidently wants to keep as many Muslims out of the country as possible.

It will be up to the Supreme Court to rule on whether Trump can do so under the Constitution. From a security standpoint, this blanket animus against Muslims is highly counterproductive. It would make no sense, even if it were legally possible, to keep out all Muslimsincluding citizens of American allies from Britain to Saudi Arabia. Its not even clear that this is possible to do: How would immigration agents know that someone is a Muslim or not? Passports dont ordinarily list religion.

The U.S. needs the cooperation of moderate Muslims, both at home and abroad, to fight the scourge of terrorism, which has claimed far more Muslim lives than those of Christians or Jews. That means we shouldnt alienate Muslims by trying to ban them from the United States. The U.S. should be trying to gather as much intelligence as possible on terrorist designs from within Muslim communities, both domestically and abroad, while at the same time carefully screening anyone, Muslim or not, who seeks entry to the United States.

But thats not very sexy. Its, in fact, the status quo. Trump seems intent on some big, showy, symbolic act, no matter how counterproductive, to demonstrate that he is doing more to combat terrorism than Obama. The Supreme Court may just let him get away with it.

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David French: The Threat To Free Speech - Commentary Magazine

Why Can’t ‘Free Speech’ Advocates Ever Defend Adjunct Professors and People of Color? – Pacific Standard

Posted on June 27, 2017 by Danzig

Pacific Standard

Why Can't 'Free Speech' Advocates Ever Defend Adjunct Professors and People of Color?
Pacific Standard
In contrast to other free speech-related controversies on college campuses, there has been almost no media coverage of Durden's ouster. That omission is part of a pattern: When wealthy, right-wing speakers and politicians encounter protest, the ...
EDITORIAL: Sometimes free speech can have consequencesTuscaloosa News
How the Right Stifles Speech With Threats and ViolenceNew Republic
Black Newark Professor Fired After Fox News Show; Will Speak At Local ChurchPatch.com
Rolling Out -Washington Post -Essex County College -Fox News Insider
all 105 news articles »

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Why Can't 'Free Speech' Advocates Ever Defend Adjunct Professors and People of Color? - Pacific Standard

If the US Supreme Court decides cake baking is free speech, it will affect more than gay weddings – Quartz

Posted on June 27, 2017 by Danzig

The US Supreme Court on June 26 agreed to to hear a landmark case involving baking, same-sex weddings, religious belief, and free speech. But Masterpiece Cakeshop vs. the Colorado Civil Rights Commission is a complicated and controversial matter that could have an impact far beyond gay rights.

The court will have to decide whether Masterpiece Cakeshop, a Colorado bakery, can be compelled by the state to bake cakes for same-sex weddings in violation of the owners religious belief. The owner claims bakingspecifically, creating a cake to order for a weddingis a form of free speech, and same-sex unions violate his faith. So, he argues, the state should exempt him from anti-discrimination laws because the constitution protects free speech and freedom of religion.

This case, which the court will hear in the term that starts in October, brings to a head a long-running battle. As LGBT rights and protections have increased in the US, similar cases involving, for example, florists who refuse to make flower arrangements for same-sex weddings, have been heard in state courts, ending mostly in defeat for the business owner. Religious-rights groups, many of whom backed US president Donald Trump in last years election, have stepped up their activism on the issue in recent months, and believe Trumps addition of the conservative Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court could tip the balance in their favor.

Hours after the Supreme Court agreed to review it, the sexual revolutionaries are butting heads with the First Amendment, conservative lawyer David French wrote in the National Review. May free speech prevail.

The Masterpiece case isnt about whether businesses can turn away gay and lesbian couples on religious grounds. They cannot, by law, and Masterpiece argues that it obeys that law because it does sell cakes and cookies to same-sex couples. But it says it wont bake same-sex marriage cakes specifically. Baking is creative expression, which is speech, which is constitutionally protected, as are religious beliefs, Masterpiece argues.

Just as the states anti-discrimination laws wouldnt stop an African-American cake artist from refusing to create a cake promoting white-supremacism for the Aryan Nation, or an Islamic cake artist from refusing to create a cake denigrating the Quran for the Westboro Baptist Church, Phillips should be allowed to turn away same-sex couples who want wedding cakes, Alliance Defending Freedom, the bakers representatives, argued in their petition to the Supreme Court.

Civil-rights activists, on the other hand, worry that a decision for Masterpiece Cakeshop will open the door to more discrimination. While the ruling would be seemingly narrowallowing the baker to refuse to bake a same-sex wedding cake but not to bar gay couples altogetherit would set a precedent that other businesses could expand on almost without limit, namely the ability to claim that a business activity is a form of creative expression.

In an amicus brief (pdf) to the Colorado appeals court for the Masterpiece case, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a lobbying group, wrote: Restaurants, hotels, hairdressers, clothing vendors, and other businesses whose proprietors object to deploying their artistic services to facilitate a same-sex wedding would be entitled to the same exemption. Nor would only LGBT people be affected: The same argument would allow nearly any business alleging similar concerns to discriminate as it pleased. Lesbians and gay men (as well as others protected by antidiscrimination statutes) would not know which businesses were open to them, and could not expect the law to consistently protect their rights.

Whats more, the Supreme Court is taking the case in a charged atmosphere, noted James Esseks of the American Civil Liberties Union, the gay couples lawyer, in a blog post on June 26. In recent months, he wrote, states have proposed laws that would license discrimination by businesses, government workers, adoption agencies, and counselors. Congress has considered similar measures. And Trump has signed an executive order that signaled his intent to use religious exemptions to advance discrimination.

In other words, theres every sign that religious conservatives are looking for legal means to broaden discrimination based on religious beliefjust as, in the wake of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, some argued that segregation was also protected by religious beliefs and freedom. If it rules in favor of the bakery, the Supreme Court could give them an important foothold.

The rulings impact could be widespread because of the sheer number of businesses it could set a precedent for. Despite the proliferation of Wal-Marts and Home Depots across the United States, small businesses remain a large part of the US economy. There are just over 5 million (pdf) businesses with fewer than 20 employees, which employ 17.3% of the private workforce.

US courts and lawmakers have traditionally given businesses this size much more leeway in deciding whom to serve or hire. Federal anti-discrimination employment laws dont apply to businesses with fewer than 15 employees, for example, and anti-discrimination housing laws dont cover smaller buildings when the owner lives there as well. Small, owner-operated businesses are also exempt from shareholder pressure.

This means that, taken to its logical conclusion, the Masterpiece precedent would give a large swathe of the economy the potential power to choose whom to serve based on religious beliefs. One might respond that there will always be plenty of other choices. But as Esseks wrote in his filing (pdf) to the Supreme Court, it is no answer to say that [the couple] could shop somewhere else for their wedding cake, just as it was no answer in 1966 to say that African-American customers could eat at another restaurant.

If the US Supreme Court decides cake baking is free speech, it will affect more than gay weddings - Quartz

Free speech policies have improved at ECU and UNC-Charlotte, watchdog group says – News & Observer

Posted on June 27, 2017 by Danzig

News & Observer

Free speech policies have improved at ECU and UNC-Charlotte, watchdog group says
News & Observer
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which monitors free speech on U.S. college campuses, issued green light ratings for East Carolina University and UNC-Charlotte in the past week. North Carolina now has six green light campuses, the ...

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Free speech policies have improved at ECU and UNC-Charlotte, watchdog group says - News & Observer

Oklahoma Joe: Freedom of speech is not limitless – Journal Record (subscription)

Posted on June 27, 2017 by Danzig

Joe Hight

Freedom of speech doesnt mean freedom from ramifications.

Ive often wondered that, especially considering recent events. Of the five some may even say six rights granted to us by the First Amendment, many may say speech is the most important. As my Media Ethics students have told me, Without freedom of speech, you wouldnt have the other freedoms.

Thats debatable, but the freedom to say or write or create is not limitless.

Examples are many, but here are a few recent ones:

Ten prospective Harvard students admissions were rescinded after they posted offensive messages and memes in the Facebook chat group Harvard memes for horny bourgeois teens. The Boston Business Journal reported the teenagers mocked sexual assault, the Holocaust, child abuse, and ethnic and racial groups.

Comedian Kathy Griffin was fired as CNNs New Years Eve commentator after posing with a fake bloody Donald Trump head. Then, as Vanity Fair reported, she joked with photographer Tyler Shields, We have to move to Mexico today because were not surviving this, OK? She later tearfully apologized, while also attacking the Trumps for seeking to ruin her life.

Milo Yiannopoulos resigned as editor of Breitbart News, lost speaking engagements and a book contract for remarks endorsing sexual relations with boys as young as 13. He apologized but not before saying he was a victim of child abuse himself. Conservative radio personality Charlie Sykes reacted by telling The New York Times, Weve created a competition for being the most offensive and the most outrageous in order to stay relevant, and then we must rally around and defend you.

Has our need for attention proliferated to the point that Sykes is correct? Is social media behind it? Last week, I wrote about unacceptable snarky and attack tweets in the aftermath of the shootings of House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and four others at a practice for the congressional baseball game.

Have we taken freedom of speech too far?

Oklahoma State University professor Joey Senat is among the experts I turned to on First Amendment and freedom of information issues. He wrote in response to my question that obscenity, deceptive advertising and child pornography do not receive First Amendment protection. He also pointed to the U.S. Supreme Courts Brandenburg Test that is used to determine the difference between speech advocating an abstract idea (which is protected by the First Amendment) and speech intended to incite imminent lawless action (which is not protected).

Even when speech is protected by the First Amendment, it can be punished, he wrote. Freedom of speech receives a great deal of protection in this country, i.e., a preferred position. To say that ramifications exist isnt to say that freedom of speech and government regulation of speech are co-equal. The scale balances in favor of speech.

But when does it go too far? Should colleges cancel a speakers planned speeches because they dont share the majority of students viewpoints? Otherwise, known as Hecklers Veto? Should people protesting at a site be escorted out and even banned because their remarks dont agree with our own?

As Joey writes, Political speech receives more protection than does commercial speech. Government must have a compelling reason to regulate political speech. The First Amendment applies only when the government is doing the censorship. Private entities may censor without violating the First Amendment.

In the end, freedom of speech doesnt give you absolute freedom. But it is a freedom we must continue to defend, along with our other First Amendment rights.

Joe Hight is a Pulitzer Prize-winning and Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame editor who is the University of Central Oklahomas endowed chair of journalism ethics and president of his family-owned business Best of Books in Edmond.

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Oklahoma Joe: Freedom of speech is not limitless - Journal Record (subscription)

Why I cannot go back to being an atheist – Aleteia EN

Posted on June 27, 2017 by Danzig

My father-in-law is one of the fairest, most patient, and most virtuous people that I know. Hes always available to help out, his capacity for forgiveness is immense, and when hes unavailable its usually because hes caring for or teaching people in his community. Hes intellectual honest, and hes a profoundly decent human being. Hes also an atheist.

Hes part of the reason why I have respect for people in the atheist community, and why when I write about atheism I usually have positive things to say. I dont think its true that all atheists are fundamentally driven by selfishness, pride or immorality. Sometimes people are atheists because theyve been intellectual or morally scandalized by poor catechesis or by the bad behavior of those who represent the gospel. Others may just be like those laborers standing around in the marketplace who havent yet been called into the fields. Conversion, after all, is a grace that comes to us according to Gods timetable.

Ive found, though, that when I speak well of the atheist community people often believe that I must be one of them or very shortly about to join their ranks. Of course I cant guarantee that I will never lose my faith (nobody can), but an atheist Im definitely not.

I am a skeptic, and Ive been around for long enough to know that skepticism is a deep-seated personality trait that isnt going anywhere. Ive never been capable of the kind of faith that is comfortable and stable. I constantly question everything and Im always searching for better answers not just in order to be able to better answer other peoples doubts, but also in order to be able to answer my own. I have tremendous respect for those who are capable of simple childlike trust in God and in the Church. Im just not that kind of kid. For me, being like a little child means being like that 3-year-old who always has to ask a hundred-thousand whys.

This kind of skepticism does, I think, represent a kind of sincere fidelity to truth. Its a difficult form of fidelity, however, because Christianity is not simple, easy or clean. I dont just mean that in the sense that its complex, demanding and youll get dirty so you should gird up your loins and take up your cross. I mean that the beauty of the faith is constantly obscured by power games, superstition, simony, charlatanism and various other forms of self-serving vainglory. We dont receive a pristine doctrine, because the teaching that we receive is presented to us by sinful human beings. We receive the Body of Christ the Body of Truth scarred, broken, pierced and crucified.

Because religious truth is so often abused and misused, it can be tempting to just be done with it. For me, though, thats not really a live option. Basically, whenever I get to the point where I can no longer see God through all of the mirages and smokescreens that men have erected in order to make God into an instrument of human purposes, I have a crisis of faith. Usually, I decide that Im for sure leaving the Church. Often, I conclude that atheism is the only intellectually honest option.

Now, this is the point where I do something that I wouldnt do if I actually were an atheist. I go and talk to God about it. And God listens very patiently while I explain all of the reasons why I cant believe anymore. And we talk it through. And usually there are some jokes at my expense. And by the end of the conversation, I remember that ultimately religion is about forging a relationship with a Being who is my author, my creator, my lover and my friend. A Being who is infinitely greater than even the most beautiful human representations, and who can never be reduced to any simple human agenda. A Being who is both revealed and concealed in every molecule, every galaxy, every human heart, every word that is uttered, every inmost thought, and every grand historical movement. A God who is in all, with all, through all, for all, of all, beyond all, beneath all, and above all.

When it comes right down to it, this relationship is sufficiently real, sufficiently profound, and sufficiently important to me that Im not sure that Im actually capable of atheism. No matter how skeptical I may be, the fundamental claim that there is a God with whom it is possible to have a deep and life-giving relationship is one I find it impossible to deny. I just have way more first-hand experience of grace than I can easily explain away.

For me this is the bottom line. I know God. I love God. And having encountered Him, I cannot go back to being an atheist.

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Why I cannot go back to being an atheist - Aleteia EN

Canadians Would Rather See an Atheist Prime Minister Than an Evangelical One – Patheos (blog)

Posted on June 27, 2017 by Danzig

Canadians. You have to stop making those of us in the U.S. feel even worse than we already do. You get Justin Trudeau. We have Christ, its sad to finish that sentence. You have a Cabinet thats diverse and full of experts in their fields. We have a bunch of evangelicals who deny science and have no business running their departments.

And now, a new poll suggests that Canadian citizens wouldnt let someones atheism, sexual orientation, or gender identity get in the way of their voting habits.

The Angus Reid Institute found that an astonishing 80% of the population would have no problem voting for a party led by someone whos an atheist. (By comparison, Gallup found in 2015 that only 58% of U.S. voters were comfortable supporting an atheist from their own party for President.)

In Quebec, specifically, the percentage of people supporting atheists jumped to 83%. And the numbers for openly gay leaders were no less amazing.

some seven-in-ten (71%) see a gay man as likely to become PM a development that would see Canada join the small handful of countries, including Ireland as of earlier this month, to have a gay leader.

Similarly, large numbers of Canadians anticipate a Jewish, lesbian, or atheist leader. Notably, the percentage who expect each is higher than the perceived probability of an evangelical Christian leading Canadas government

The difference in support for an atheist leader in the U.S. and Canada was larger in than any other category. And I suspect its not that Canadians have an urge to see an atheist in office so much as they just wouldnt care. Why would it matter? Its not like atheist leaders would push their non-beliefs on everybody. They know full well, however, than evangelical Christians in power would do everything they could to use the government to promote awful faith-based policies. Hell, all they have to do is look to the south to see how thats working out.

To be sure, a candidates gender, religious beliefs, ethnicity, etc. shouldnt matter at all. People should only care about the candidates ideas and policy proposals. Good ideas can come from devoutly religious people and Ive heard plenty of bad ideas from the mouths of atheists. So while I wish all of these percentages were higher, its nice to know that at least in Canada, theyre nearly all closer to where they should be. We all have a long way to go in some categories, but its a shorter distance up north.

Theres more analysis at Canadian Atheist, if youre interested.

(Thanks to Dorothy for the link)

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Canadians Would Rather See an Atheist Prime Minister Than an Evangelical One - Patheos (blog)

Colorful Nebula Forms a Cosmic ‘Spirograph’ in Hubble Telescope … – Space.com

Posted on June 27, 2017 by Danzig

Planetary nebula IC 418 looks like a glowing orange and purple jewel in this Hubble image from 2000.

Space is bejeweled with the stunning IC 418, a planetary nebula with purple and orange coloring enveloping a bright white core. The nebula lies close to 2,000 light-years from Earth on the way to the Lepus constellation.

Planetary nebulas like IC 418 are thelast stage of evolution for a star like our sun; it was once ared giant before it ejected its outer layers into space several thousand years ago. Since its eruption, the nebula has expanded to about 0.1 light-year in diameter, representitives from Space Telescope Science Institute in Marylandsaid in a statement.

The hot, white core visible in the image is the stellar remnant of the red giant, and its ultraviolet radiation creates the fluorescence in the nebula around it. The ejecta will continue to spread into the cosmos over the next several thousand years. The star will cool and fade over billions of years as a white dwarf.

This isthe fate of Earth's own sunin some 5 billion years from now.

The camera filters used to isolate light from different chemical elements are represented by the added colors. Red, at the outer edge of the nebula, shows ionized nitrogen emission this is the coolest gas in the nebula. Green shows hydrogen gas emission. Blue, at the center closest to the star, reveals ionized oxygen emissions this is the hottest gas in the nebula. TheHubble Space Telescope revealed the designs and textures within the nebula for the first time, and experts are still searching for their origin.

Colorful Nebula Forms a Cosmic 'Spirograph' in Hubble Telescope ... - Space.com

NATO says more Russian buzzing of Baltic airspace a risk for deadly mistakes – Deutsche Welle

Posted on June 27, 2017 by Danzig

The Baltic nations and Poland just got some long-awaited NATO boots on the ground, inaugurating new standing battalions last week amid multinational exercises along the Russian border. In the skies above, the Kremlin made sure everyone knew it was watching, sending its warplanes to "buzz" Baltic airspace and even, according to the Lithuanian ministry of defense, to illegally enter it on two occasions.

Finland and Sweden also noted incidents in their vicinities. In a dramatic encounter on June 21, a Polish F-16 approached the plane carrying Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on his way to Kaliningrad, videotaped from aboard the Russian plane. Russian media reported a Russian escort plane intervened between the NATO jet and Shoigu's aircraft.

The same day the US reported a Russian jet flew less than two meters from one of its surveillance planes, which a Pentagon spokesman said was dangerous due to the Russian pilot's "high rate of closure speed and poor control of the aircraft." Sweden summoned Russia's ambassador after a Russian fighter jet flew unusually close to a Swedish reconnaissance plane in international airspace above the Baltic Sea.

NATO notes more Russian 'visitors'

NATO's deputy spokesperson Piers Cavalet confirmed to DW that there was an unusual spike in the Russian air presence over the Baltic Sea last week. "These included strategic bombers, fighters, reconnaissance, transport and other aircraft," Cavalet said, adding that planes operating as part of NATO's air-policing operations or from national air forces followed standard procedure in "scrambling" to monitor the aircraft.

Cavalet rejected Russian accusations that NATO planes are the ones creating tensions, saying "when NATO aircraft intercept a plane they identify it visually, maintaining a safe distance at all times. Once complete, NATO jets break away. All our pilots behave in a safe and responsible way."

NATO says there's been a spike in the number of Russian planes flying too close to allied aircraft

Speaking Monday in Brussels, the chairmanof NATO's military command, General Petr Pavel, added that it's not just the airspace over the Baltic Sea where the spike is evident, but also over the Black Sea.

"In most of these cases we haven't been observing [the flights] would be clearly hostile," Pavel said at an event hosted by Politico. "[W]e are mostly witnessing what we call unprofessional behavior in the airspace. When these rules are broken the chance of getting into an incident is pretty close."

With Russia beginning its own military exercises along its western border in September, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told DW he is concerned about an even higher risk of such accidents then.

World events warrant concern for air clashes

But Thomas Frear, a research fellow with the European Leadership Network, has been writing for years about what he calls the "escalatory potential" of encounters between Russian and Western aircraft and ships. After a decline in tension in 2016 following a 2014/2015 spike, Frear believes the situation has become more critical now, with the stand-off between the US and Russia in Syria.

"The unexpectedly hostile relations between [Russia and] the Trump administration, the ever increasing tempo of military exercises in Europe, and the closer proximity of Russian and coalition aircraft in Syria have combined to drive the number of incidents up again," he told DW.

Frear said that Western authorities are not taking the situation seriously enough, especially the risk to civilian aircraft. "I view this as a combination of complacency and a lack of understanding of the problem," he said, explaining that international regulations governing interaction between aircraft do not apply to military planes.

Neither are national air forces required to be transparent about their rules of behavior with respect to non-military aircraft, Frear said. "[C]ivilian pilots will be unaware of military patterns of behavior," he noted, "risking an accident."

While there are some efforts to change this, Frear said it would require amending the 1944 Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation, a global agreement, making the possibility of any quick action quite remote.

US-Russian tension over Syria worse than Cold War

Frear urges immediate attention to the potential NATO-Russia conflict brewing beyond the Baltics in Syria, where the status of the US-Russian air safety agreement in the country is now uncertain.

"Greater engagement by both Russia and the US-led coalition in Syria has certainly heightened the possibility of a lethal clash," Frear warned, pointing to the fact that NATO ally Turkey already shot down a Russian plane it said crossed into its airspace in 2015. In addition, he said, "Russian and US aircraft have already attacked ground forces allied to the other, leading to rhetoric from military leaders of a bellicosity not seen even at the height of the Cold War."

As well as the need for the Syrian deconfliction agreement to be preserved, Frear said joint groups of experts should be urgently examining how to craft a broader NATO-Russia agreement on avoiding and managing hazardous incidents. In the shortest term, he writes in his report, "there should be zero tolerance for reckless behavior of individual military commanders, pilots and other personnel, especially by the Russian leadership. Use of dangerous military brinkmanship tactics for political signaling is a high-risk strategy, which may backfire in case of an incident."

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NATO says more Russian buzzing of Baltic airspace a risk for deadly mistakes - Deutsche Welle

Bloomberg View: NATO can fight terrorism one sinking boat at a time … – Omaha World-Herald

Posted on June 27, 2017 by Danzig

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has now formally enlisted in the fight against Islamic State. It can begin by helping to stem the flow of refugees trying to reach Europe from North Africa.

This would be more than a humanitarian exercise; it would be a counterterrorism operation. Wherever refugees gather in hopelessness, violent extremists have a fertile recruiting ground. And the number of refugees is staggering.

Nearly 200,000 people fleeing violence and poverty tried to cross the Mediterranean last year, and at least 5,000 died in the attempt. The U.N. estimates there are more than half a million refugees, asylum seekers and displaced people in Libya alone.

Neither the fractured Libyan government nor the European Union can cope with the numbers, leaving hundreds of thousands of people in makeshift refugee camps some of which are controlled by human traffickers and resemble concentration camps, according to a German government report.

Those who make it across the Mediterranean dont fare much better. Most end up in overcrowded camps in Italy, where social services are lacking and applications for asylum languish.

Those intercepted in Libyan waters are sent back. Sometimes the traffickers dump their human cargo in the sea to avoid capture.

So what can NATO do? With more than 700 ships at its disposal, it can do a lot.

For starters, it can build on Italian-led Operation Sophia, which has saved thousands of lives but is woefully inadequate to the task.

NATOs sophisticated surveillance capabilities, such as long-range patrol airplanes and satellite imagery, can monitor ports in Africa and the Middle East and aid in search-and-rescue efforts.

NATO can also help the EUs efforts to professionalize the Libyan coast guard.

The alliance can foster far more naval cooperation and intelligence sharing among its members, and with intergovernmental entities such as Interpol. This should also involve another underutilized asset: private shipping companies, which are obligated to respond to other vessels in distress.

NATO could also encourage member states to build more camps on Mediterranean islands and could aid with construction, perimeter security, health care and the like.

NATO patrols in the Mediterranean could provide a more direct benefit in the fight against terrorists: stemming the flow of arms from the Middle East to Islamist terrorists in North Africa. Islamic State already has a foothold in Libya and is trying to expand into Tunisia.

Two years ago, the civil war in Syria caused the exodus of millions, which set off a political crisis from Greece to the U.K. and created a lasting rift between Turkey and its NATO allies.

That time, the alliance watched from the sidelines. Now, as fighting intensifies and conditions deteriorate in Syria, NATO cant afford to make the same mistake.

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Bloomberg View: NATO can fight terrorism one sinking boat at a time ... - Omaha World-Herald

The dangers of reading micro expressions – HuffPost

Posted on June 27, 2017 by Danzig

Do We Really Want People to Learn How to Spot Micro Facial Expressions?

Paul Ekman Group

By definition, micros leak emotions that people dont want others to know they are feeling. Sometimes, even the person showing the micro is not aware of the emotion that is leaking out. My Micro Expression Training Tool (METT) enables those who study it to take this information from people attempting to conceal their emotions (and, in a sense, they are stealing this information).

Who has the right to do that, to tear away the curtains disguise? Certainly the Law Enforcement Officers (LEOs), although I have argued (a bit rhetorically) that LEOs who have been trained to spot micros should offer those they talk to the opportunity to wear a mask or facial cover.

The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution protects us from self-incrimination, but micros may provide the Law Enforcement Officer (LEO) who took our training just such incriminating information- just what the person involuntarily showing the micros doesnt want a LEO to know. Would it be in the spirit of the Fifth Amendment for LEOs who have learned how to spot micros to at least inform those they interview that they have been specially trained to take this information- to invade privacy without consent? Should they offer criminal suspects the right to wear a mask to preserve their Fifth Amendment protection?

Many people (lawyers, business operators, salespersons) whose interests are not always the same as those whose micros they learn to spot, can now (without forewarning) invade privacy, taking information without permission that the provider would not want them to have. I never thought about these issues when I developed METT, but I recognize that my training courses enable an invasion of a very private realm of peoples lives: the feelings they dont want everyone (and sometimes, no one) to know they are experiencing.

And yet, such an invasion of privacy can serve the public good. It helps the health care provider doctor, nurse, or other caregiver tune in and, therefore, be better able to help.

I once thought that I might be able to control who else would be able to use METT, but I learned from my colleagues in the Department of Defense that there is no way to do that. A tool, once created and accessible on the internet, is available to everyone who pays the nominal price. All I can hope, my Defense Department colleagues advised, is that it will be used more for what I consider to be good, to help people, than to harm or exploit people.

The proverbial cat is out of the bag, free to go anywhere!

Dr. Paul Ekman is a well-known psychologist and co-discoverer of micro expressions. He was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME magazine in 2009. He has worked with many government agencies, domestic and abroad. Dr. Ekman has compiled over 40 years of his research to create comprehensive training tools to read the hidden emotions of those around you. To learn more, please visit: http://www.paulekman.com.

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The dangers of reading micro expressions - HuffPost

Second Amendment violations targeted by criminal code experts – Washington Times

Posted on June 27, 2017 by Danzig

In District of Columbia v. Heller, the U.S. Supreme Court held that Washington, D.C.s ban on handgun possession unconstitutionally infringed on Second Amendment rights. Yet a District law prohibiting with few exceptions ammunition in residents homes lingers on the books.

What good is the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense if you cannot have ammunition? How can residents look to the law to understand what conduct is and is not illegal? Should they follow the statutes? The court? Get confused and forgo their rights?

In Marbury v. Madison, Chief Justice John Marshall wrote that if a statute is in opposition to the Constitution, the Constitution must govern.

Following that principle, the criminal code reform commission established by the City Council has reviewed the districts criminal laws and identified two statutes Unlawful Possession of Ammunition (D.C. Code 7-2506.01) and Alteration of Identifying Marks of Weapons (D.C. Code 22-4512) as being unconstitutional.

The commissions findings rest on two cases in D.C. courts: Herrington v. United States and Reid v. United States.

In Herrington, the trial court had ruled that all the government needs to prove to obtain [an unlawful possession of ammunition] conviction are that the defendant possessed ammunition, and that he did so knowingly and intentionally. The D.C. Court of Appeals disagreed, writing, a flat ban on the possession of handgun ammunition in the home is not just incompatible with the Second Amendment, but clearly so.

Yet it ruled that the government may convict a defendant of unlawful possession of ammunition if it also proves beyond a reasonable doubt that he had not lawfully registered a firearm of the same gauge or caliber as the ammunition he possesses.

The commissions report identifies the statute as unconstitutional but advises lawmakers to cure that by amending the law to incorporate the courts ruling.

The second offense makes it a crime to alter or obliterate a firearms serial number. The commissions report observes that the law also permits a jury to infer that a person who possesses a weapon with obliterated markings is the same person who did, in fact, obliterate those markings.

In Reid, the D.C. Court of Appeals recognized that individuals might unknowingly acquire weapons with previously obliterated markings, and that, therefore, the presumption of guilt in the statute is fundamentally unfair and violates due process.

Thirty-four years later, commissioners are just now advising lawmakers to bring the law up to date with the U.S. Constitution.

The commissioners give three reasons why lawmakers should no longer delay updating D.C. firearms laws:

1) to ensure respect for the peoples constitutional rights;

2) to clarify to the general public what precisely constitutes an offense; and

3) to guide practitioners in the future.

For the same reasons, other states should review their criminal codes to ensure that Second Amendment rights, and other constitutional provisions, are protected.

As the Supreme Court stated in McBoyle v. United States in 1931, and had recognized long before that, fair warning should be given to the world in language that the common world will understand, of what the law intends to do if a certain line is passed. To make the warning fair, so far as possible the line should be clear.

In Heller, the Court wrote that the Second Amendment bears no secret or technical meanings that would not have been known to ordinary citizens in the founding generation. In McDonald v. Chicago, the Court held that the Second Amendment right, recognized in Heller, to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense applies to the states.

The D.C. Criminal Code Reform Commission represents a step in the right direction. It has provided a straightforward methodology for reviewing criminal laws in the interest of protecting constitutional rights. It is an approach that all cities and states should consider taking.

John-Michael Seibler is a legal fellow in The Heritage Foundations Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.

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Second Amendment violations targeted by criminal code experts - Washington Times

Researcher suggests gun related violence prevention, Second … – Guns.com

Posted on June 27, 2017 by Danzig

A Boston-area professor said last week a middle ground exists between protecting the Second Amendment and methods of reducing gun-related violence.

In Broadening the Perspective on Gun Violence: An Examination of the Firearms Industry, 19902015, Boston University School of Public Health professor Dr. Michael Siegel said he wanted to frame gun research in a different context.

Research on firearm violence tends to focus on two elements the host (i.e., victims of firearm violence) and the environment (i.e., gun policies), he said in the articles introduction, published Thursday. But little attention has been paid to the agent (the gun and ammunition) or the vector (firearm manufacturers, dealers, and the industry lobby).

According to federal data, firearms manufacturing in America tripled between 2000 and 2013 the last year Seigel studied.

In that year alone, manufacturers produced 4.4 million pistols, 4 million rifles, 1.2 million shotguns, 725,000 revolvers and 495,000 miscellaneous firearms, according to Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Firearms manufacturing dipped 16 percent the following year to just over 9million produced.

[Manufacturers] have reinvented guns not as a recreational sport or tool but as a symbol of freedom and security, Siegel told ABC News Thursday.

Siegel said the increased manufacturing of high-caliber pistols, especially, points to a consumers growing interest in self-defense and a similar need for a new perspective on gun-related violence as a public health issue, not a criminal justice one.

Ultimately, a better understanding of the products on the market may have implications for improving firearms as consumer products, such as fostering changes in design to increase safety or changes in corporate practices to better protect consumers, as has been done for tobacco products, the report concludes.

Siegel said the study, published last week in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, doesnt mean to imply gun owners should lose their right to bear arms, but rather society must create an effective way to weed out those more prone to violent acts.

They are not the enemy in public health, he said. There are ways to reduce gun violence while valuing gun owners values. It has been painted too long as mutually exclusive.

Larry Keane, general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, reiterated the organizations long-standing opposition to viewing gun-related violence through a public health lens.

Guns are not a disease, he told ABC News. There is no vaccine or health intervention for the criminal misuse of firearms.

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Researcher suggests gun related violence prevention, Second ... - Guns.com

A New Day for the Second Amendment: Donald Trump Addresses the NRA – NRA ILA

Posted on June 27, 2017 by Danzig

This article appears in the July 2017 issues of the Official Journals of the National Rifle Association.

The drumbeat of fake news continues as the elites disappointed by the 2016 election dedicate themselves to resisting the Trump administration.

Among their many false narratives is that Americans are no longer interested in firearms now that Barack Obama is out of the White House.

At least two big groups of people didnt get that memo.

One is comprised of the 2,045,564 Americans who were queried through the FBIs firearm background check database in April 2017. This was the second busiest April ever for that system. In fact, each month of Trumps presidency has seen over two million firearm-related background checks. Only in 2016, when Americans faced losing their Second Amendment rights forever, did the FBI run more checks during a January to April period.

The other group included the nearly 82,000 people who attended the NRAs Annual Meetings and Exhibits in Atlanta, Georgia in late April. This was our second-highest total of attendees ever. Fifteen acres of guns and gear on display at the Georgia World Congress Center said all that needed to be said about the vitality of Americas firearms industry.

But those werent the only encouraging signs that greeted the NRAs extended family reunion in the Peach State. Our Annual Leadership Forum drew an impressive line-up of speakers. Besides three sitting U.S. Senators (Georgias David Purdue, Alabamas Luther Strange, and Texas Ted Cruz), we heard from Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Florida Governor Rick Scott. Lt. Col. Allen West and Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke provided a distinguished presence from the uniformed ranks. And rounding out the guest list were Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, former Major League Baseball great Adam LaRoche, and campus carry advocate Antonia Okafor.

But that was just the undercard, as it were. Because for only the second time in the NRAs history, we welcomed the sitting President of the United States (the last one before him being Ronald Reagan in 1983). For those of us who were on the front lines of the brutal 2016 election (and that included every NRA member present), it was not only an honor to have President Trump address the NRA, but one of the clearest possible lessons of the power the common person still holds in American democracy.

I began my remarks with a montage of film clips showing condescending figures from the political, media, and entertainment establishments dismissing Trumps chances of winning the election, contrasted with footage of the partnership forged between the NRA and Donald Trump. NRA members have always stood apart from the prevailing winds of elite opinion and political correctness to focus on the enduring values that have bound our country together from the beginning.

That resolve was never as evident or necessary as in 2016, when the fate of our country and the Second Amendment literally hung in the balance of the presidential contest. On the one hand was globalist and Second Amendment opponent Hillary Clinton, who claimed that the Supreme Court was wrong to recognize an individual right to keep and bear arms. On the other was Donald Trump, who had a Second Amendment position paper on his campaign website that began, The Second Amendment to our Constitution is clear. The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed upon. Period. At stake was which of them would appoint the Second Amendments tie-breaking vote on the U.S. Supreme Court.

By the time President Trump addressed the crowd in Atlanta, he had already made that appointment by filling the late Justice Antonin Scalias seat with another constitutional originalist, Neil M. Gorsuch. Once again, we have a majority of support on the Court for our right to keep a gun in our home for self-defense.

President Trump had many stirring things to say during his address. But the line all of us will remember most is when he assured the members of the NRA: you came through for me, and I am going to come through for you.

More than that, however, you the NRAs members came through for America and for the freedoms we hold dear. And American democracy and its elevation of the common man and woman came through for all of us.

As ever, the fight for Americas soul will continue. But that Friday in Atlanta showed with the utmost clarity it is one we can win.

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A New Day for the Second Amendment: Donald Trump Addresses the NRA - NRA ILA

Americans take the First Amendment for granted. They shouldn’t under Trump – Sacramento Bee

Posted on June 27, 2017 by Danzig

Sacramento Bee

Americans take the First Amendment for granted. They shouldn't under Trump
Sacramento Bee
The words of the First Amendment may be 45 of the the most important ever written. Those who doubt the value of those freedoms of religion, speech, the press, assembly and petitioning for redress of grievances might look to Asia, where I work, and ...

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Americans take the First Amendment for granted. They shouldn't under Trump - Sacramento Bee

First Amendment Needs to ‘Take a Backseat’ in Pharma Bro Trial: Lawyer – TheStreet.com

Posted on June 27, 2017 by Danzig

It's only the second day of Martin Shkreli's trial and already, Shkreli's attorney Benjamin Braufman has renewed a mistrial motion to attempt to bar press from the courtroom.

According to Braufman, the press is affecting juror sentiment given the "bad" and "inaccurate" publicity that Shkreli has received.

"The first amendment in this particular case needs to take a backseat for Mr. Shkreli's case," said Braufman.

Braufman cited a New York Post cover from Tuesday, June 27, that depicted Shkreli smirking with a headline captioned "Jury of His Jeers: 134 jurors out in 'Pharma Bro' trial: They all hate him".As Braufman reviewed the articles in question, Shkreli glanced over at the press situated in the back of the room and smirked.

To Braufman's dismay, Judge Kiyo Matsumoto denied the motion.

Shkreli is the former CEO of the biotech firm Retrophin Inc. (RTRX) as well as the founder of Turing Pharmaceuticals AG. He received negative press after increasing the price of Daraprim, a preventative medication geared towards those with HIV/AIDs, by nearly 5,000%. What used to cost $13.50 per pill now costs $750 for a single tablet.

Accused of defrauding investors of two hedge funds, Shkreli is said to have allegedly paid off two hedge fund investors using $11 million worth of Retrophin's assets. Currently, Shkreli is under federal investigation for eight counts of securities and wire fraud.

The case is expected to begin during the later-half of Tuesday, June 27, or on the morning of Wednesday, June 28. The court is still filtering through potential jurors to assemble a grand jury for the case. The judge initially summoned 130 prospective jurors, but an additional 50 prospective jurors joined the fray on Monday. On Tuesday, at about midday, the judge called in more prospective jurors.

Braufman further referenced his concern, believing that this "negative" press publicly affects juror sentiment. But Katherine Bolger, a lawyer at Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz LLP who represents various media outlets, argued that Shkreli's past actionsspeak for themselves.

"Mr. Shkreli has circulated these opinions himself," said Bolger. "It's not that jurors don't like Mr Shkreli, it's that Mr. Shkreli took a position that people don't like."

She continued that any restriction on public access to a proceeding has to be effective in protecting constitutional rights, which within this case, was not the instance.

"With all due respect, you don't know what you're talking about. It's about publicity that attacks the jurors," responded Braufman. He emphasized thathis intent was not to curtail coverage of Shkreli, but to curtail press coverage of the jurors.

Judge Matsumoto responded to the two by voicing caution: "Despite my admonishments to jurors to not read headlines...we have to probe very carefully."

According to Jeffrey Cramer, a former federal prosecutor and current Managing Director at Berkeley Research Group, it will be difficult for Shkreli to present himself as "an innocent dupe" given his prior statements.

"The smartest play is for him to stay quiet and let his lawyers argue that the Government has not met its burden of proof," said Cramer. "Defendants like this are usually their worst enemy in court. Most of his public statements on this topic have been fairly arrogant."

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