Daily Archives: June 25, 2017

Free speech rallies happening today in Washington, DC – WXIA-TV

Posted: June 25, 2017 at 1:58 pm

John Henry and WUSA , WXIA 1:03 PM. EDT June 25, 2017

WASHINGTON (WUSA9) - Rallies have become a common sight in DC this year, but Sunday might be a little unique.

A handful of groups plan to hold dueling rallies about political rhetoric and free speech.

The "Freedom of Speech Rally" will kick off at 12pm at the Lincoln Memorial. Colton Merwin, 19, of Baltimore organized the event as an outlet for conservatives to discuss political ideas, topics regarding free speech and immigration.

That event will have multiple speakers including Alt-Right figurehead Richard Spencer. His appearance has sparked controversy, but Merwin defended the rally's decision to have him speak.

"To support free speech, you have to support all aspects of the conservative right and libertarian right as well," he said.

DC United Against Hate will hold another rally to directly oppose the Freedom of Speech Rally at the Lincoln Memorial. It is scheduled to start at 11am. Organizers plan to bring attention to the multiple acts of racist behavior that have popped up around the DMV. Reverend Graylan Hagler, of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ, told WUSA9 that hate speech is something that cannot be tolerated.

"Given the history we have in the United States of America, disparaging speech leads to violence," he said.

At 12pm, another rally will kick off outside the White House. The event is called the " Rally Against Political Violence" at the White House.

Political operative Roger Stone and former Virginia gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart are scheduled to speak. According to the rally's Facebook page, the rally will condemn violence such as the shooting of Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise.

Finally, also at noon, protesters will gather at the DC Police headquarters to oppose the right-wing agenda and police brutality. The rally has been nicknamed the "Really Really Free Speech Rally".

DC Police told WUSA9 it will monitor that protest just as it would any other protest. Park Police released the following statement regarding the other rallies.

"The United States Park Police maintains a robust patrol presence. We consistently analyze information to detect and deter threats to public safety. In order to protect the integrity of our operations, we are unable to discuss the logistics of our security footprint. The USPP makes no distinction regarding a groups message or political standpoint. Our intent is to protect our treasured icons and the people people who visit them."

2017 WUSA-TV

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Attacks On Trinity Professor: Free Speech Or Intimidation? – Hartford Courant

Posted: at 1:58 pm

Trinity Professor Johnny Williams was added this week to a national "Professor Watchlist," a list that academic leaders say conservative groups use to attack professors with views antithetical to theirs.

Williams, who made national headlines last week because of two controversial Facebook posts, joined a roster of 200 faculty members who have been selected for advancing "a radical agenda in lecture halls."

Academic leaders say the Watchlist is part of a playbook employed by conservative groups and publications that threatens academic freedom if it causes professors to self-censor their remarks to avoid threats or possible job loss.

The longtime Trinity sociology professor was in the news after a conservative online publication called Campus Reform picked up the two Facebook posts, including a profane hashtag and, Williams says, misconstrued them as saying things he never said or intended: that he endorsed the idea that nothing should have been done to save white victims in the recent shooting at a Congressional baseball practice.

Williams tried to clarify his position saying that he wants to see an end to white supremacist ideology not to let white people die as the online publication said but the Facebook posts and Campus Reform's interpretation of them went viral, resulting in death threats to Williams, threats to the Trinity Campus, and calls for Williams to be fired.

Trinity President Joanne Berger-Sweeney shut down the campus for a day and has launched an investigation into whether Williams violated college policies, while Williams and his family are in hiding far away from Connecticut to protect their safety.

The targeting of left-leaning professors like Williams and what some professors say is a misreading of their words is a scenario that Williams' supporters and national experts say is becoming more common, and has made minority professors with views that may be discomforting for some all the more vulnerable.

"I do think there is a concerted campaign to try to target and intimidate certain kinds of public intellectuals," Maurice Wade, a Trinity philosophy professor, said. "They want a certain kind of right-wing orthodoxy to be the curricular and education agenda in higher education."

Williams, who is married to a white woman, has taught at Trinity about race and racism since 1996 and is known as an outspoken opponent of white supremacist ideology who challenges students to explore territory related to race that can be uncomfortable for some.

Landing On The Watchlist

Hans-Joerg Tiede, an associate secretary with the American Association of University Professors, said "it's not new that public remarks that professors make somehow cause controversy. ... It's not even completely new that news outlets specifically try to find instances and quote them out of context or even incorrectly."

What is new, he said, is that such instances "generate this response of inundating individuals with threats and harassment... There are often threats of violence." He noted that The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., was shut down for several days earlier this month because of threats and security concerns after comments by a professor.

"It is already disconcerting for individuals to be subject to such threats. ... But then to also basically cause entire institutions of higher education to close because of them that's really an attack on higher education quite broadly," Tiede said.

He said there have been instances in which students have recorded professors' comments in class and then posted excerpts on social media that cause an uproar.

"All of these are concerns that faculty increasingly have," Tiede said, "that they are going to be subject to surveillance by students recording things, surveillance of social media posts ..."

The impact of the Professor Watchlist, which many have likened to McCarthy-era blacklists, is hard to assess, Tiede said. "As you know with the way it is with blacklists, no university will publicly say that they are not hiring somebody because they are [on the list] ... but it could in principle dissuade someone from hiring. I certainly don't know whether it does."

Noel Cazenave, a UConn sociology professor, said he is concerned that such efforts could threaten academic freedom and the diversity of faculty.

In letter to Trinity College Faculty Dean Tim Cresswell, who will be reviewing Williams' case, Cazenave wrote that organizations such as Campus Reform and Turning Point have launched a highly organized effort "to remove critical voices from college campuses."

He said Williams is the fourth "progressive faculty of color to be attacked by such groups within the last month or so." Cazenave said he sees the developments as tied to the election of Donald Trump as president. While that is unclear, the Professor Watchlist was established soon after the election on Nov. 16.

Cazenave said he's concerned that Berger-Sweeney is going to get pressure from Trinity alumni and possibly significant donors. "They may take punitive action against Johnny, and I think the African-American community is going to put Trinity on notice that that we are not going to stand around idly and let that happen."

Who Gets Targeted?

Matt Lamb, who manages the Professor Watchlist for Turning Point USA, said in an email that "professors are on the list for targeting students, shutting down debate, or otherwise using hyperbolic language which would tend to silence debate."

He called the list "a wonderful example of free speech because professors can say whatever they want, news outlets can report on what they said (free speech as well), and then we can post what is said (using our free speech rights) and people can then make a decision for themselves."

Their website says that students parents, and alumni "deserve to know the specific incidents and names of professors that advance a radical agenda in the lecture halls."

Lamb said he relies on news stories done by other organizations such as Campus Reform to determine which professors make the list.

The listing under Williams' name on the Professor Watchlist quotes the Campus Reform story as saying that Williams said first responders "should have let the congressmen die for being white" and that Williams said white people should "[expletive] die."

Williams did not say those things, though he shared on Facebook an online essay titled "Let Them [expletive] Die," which was written by another writer and explored those topics, and used that title as a hashtag in a post. That article, on Medium.com, discussed the Congressional shooting, asked what it means "when victims of bigotry save the lives of bigots" and urged a show of indifference to the lives of bigots.

Williams has said he did not defend or support the article but shared it as a "teaching tool" for readers. He said his Facebook posts, which called for an end to the "white supremacy system," referred to the fatal police shooting of a black mother in Seattle on June 18. He said the use of the hashtag and sharing the article were meant simply to offer another point of view.

Sterling Beard, the editor-in-chief of Campus Reform, said the the goal of the online publication is to "operate as a higher education watchdog and expose liberal bias and abuse in America's colleges."

The publication has student journalists on campuses all over the country who work with professional journalists to produce stories.

Beard stood by the Campus Reform story, saying the "juxtaposition" of Williams' Facebook share of the controversial essay and the hashtag constituted "an endorsement" of the essay and, coupled with the Facebook posts, backed up the story.

He added that he "condemns in the strongest terms any and all threats" received by Williams and his colleagues. "We do not advocate for any harassment of the subjects of stories on campusreform.org and we are sorry to hear that he's received that harassment."

Williams' Message Lost?

A professor's message condensed in a Facebook post or a tweet is often misunderstood because academic language can be technical and theoretical, experts say.

Wade, the Trinity philosophy professor, said it was clear to him in Williams' Facebook posts that he was attempting to make a distinction between white "as a skin color and a socially constructed white identity, deeply rooted and tied to white supremacy."

"Johnny is a dogged and relentless opponent to and critic of white supremacy," Wade said. "You know Johnny does not attack people on skin color. This is ludicrous. ... He attacks white supremacy, a certain kind of socially-constructed white identity that is linked, tied to white supremacy."

Wade said he is deeply disappointed by the "vitriol and threats that are directed at a professor because of his legitimate exercise of his freedom of speech, when there is far less distress and concern shown over the murders of innocent black people."

Cazenave said he doesn't think "European-Americans understand how racially tense the situation in the U.S. is for people who perceive that they are under constant attack by their president and by his followers. ...

"Today we have African Americans trying to respond to the intense anguish that has been caused by these police killing. That's what Johnny Williams was trying to express, that outrage."

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Campus Free Speech Bill Passes Wisconsin Assembly – legal Insurrection (blog)

Posted: at 1:58 pm

Around the country weve had situations that have gotten to the point of demonstration shout downs

This effort was advanced almost entirely by Republicans. Democrats oppose the idea of consequences for those who infringe the free speech rights of others.

The Journal Sentinel reports:

Wisconsin Assembly passes campus free speech bill

Lawmakers late Wednesday voted to crack down on University of Wisconsin System students who disrupt other peoples speeches and events, pitting one set of free speech concerns against another.

Republicans who control the state Legislature are pushing Assembly Bill 299 to protect conservative voices on campus. The Assembly sent the bill to the state Senate on a 61-36 vote Wednesday night, with Republican Rep. Bob Gannon of West Bend joining all Democrats in opposing the bill.

Today we are ensuring that simply because you are a young adult on a college campus, your constitutional rights do not go away, lead sponsor Rep. Jesse Kremer (R-Kewaskum) said. Around the country weve had situations that have gotten to the point of demonstration shout downs and we do not want to get to that point in Wisconsin.

Critics argue the bill isnt needed in Wisconsin and would actually hinder freedom of speech by suspending or expelling students.

Our colleges and universities should be a place to vigorously debate ideas and ultimately learn from one another. Instead, this campus gag rule creates an atmosphere of fear where free expression and dissent are discouraged, Rep. Lisa Subeck (D-Madison) said.

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NASA’s Hubble space telescope detects disk-shaped galaxy – BGR India

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Astronomers have detected a first-of-its kind compact yet massive, fast-spinning, disk-shaped galaxy that stopped making stars only a few billion years after the Big Bang. Finding such a galaxy early in the history of the universe challenges the current understanding of how massive galaxies form and evolve, the researchers said. The finding, published in the journal Nature, was possible with the capability of NASAs Hubble space telescope.

When Hubble photographed the galaxy, astronomers expected to see a chaotic ball of stars formed through galaxies merging together. Instead, they saw evidence that the stars were born in a pancake-shaped disk. This was the first direct observational evidence that at least some of the earliest so-called dead galaxies where star formation stopped somehow evolve from a Milky Way-shaped disk into the giant elliptical galaxies we see today.

This new insight may force us to rethink the whole cosmological context of how galaxies burn out early on and evolve into local elliptical-shaped galaxies, said study leader Sune Toft from University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Perhaps we have been blind to the fact that early dead galaxies could in fact be disks, simply because we havent been able to resolve them, Toft said. ALSO READ:NASAs Kepler space telescope discovers 10 near-Earth size, habitable planet candidates

The remote galaxy was three times as massive as the Milky Way but only half the size. Rotational velocity measurements made with the European Southern Observatorys Very Large Telescope (VLT) showed that the disk galaxy was spinning more than twice as fast as the Milky Way. Using archival data from the Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH), Toft and his team were able to determine the stellar mass, star-formation rate, and the ages of the stars. ALSO READ:NASAs Hubble telescope shows close-up image of Jupiter, Great Red Spot

Why this galaxy stopped forming stars was still unknown. It might be the result of an active galactic nucleus, where energy was gushing from a supermassive black hole. This energy inhibits star formation by heating the gas or expelling it from the galaxy. Or it might be the result of the cold gas streaming onto the galaxy being rapidly compressed and heated up, preventing it from cooling down into star-forming clouds in the galaxys centre. But how do these young, massive, compact disks evolve into the elliptical galaxies we see in the present-day universe? ALSO READ:Here are five interesting facts about NASAs Juno spacecraft orbiting Jupiter

Probably through mergers, Toft said.

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The Future of NATO | Council on Foreign Relations

Posted: at 1:55 pm

When NATO's founding members signed the North Atlantic Treaty on April 4, 1949, they declared themselves "resolved to unite their efforts for collective defense and for the preservation of peace and security." The greatest threat to these objectives was a military attack by a hostile powera prospect that led to the treaty's most famous provision, Article V, which states, "The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all."

Today, more than sixty years later, the threats facing the alliance's members have changed considerably. An attack in North America or Europe by the regular army of an outside state is highly unlikely. Instead, the alliance must confront an array of more diffuse challenges, ranging from terrorism and nuclear proliferation to piracy, cyberattacks, and the disruption of energy supplies.

In this Council Special Report, James M. Goldgeier takes on the question of how NATO, having successfully kept the peace in Europe in the twentieth century, can adapt to the challenges of the twenty-first. Goldgeier contends that NATO retains value for the United States and Europe. He writes, though, that it must expand its vision of collective defense in order to remain relevant and effective. This means recognizing the full range of threats that confront NATO members today and affirming that the alliance will respond collectively to an act (whether by an outside state or a nonstate entity) that imperils the political or economic security or territorial integrity of a member state.

A central part of this debate concerns NATO's involvement in conflicts outside of Europe, including today in Afghanistan. Analyzing the questions surrounding this involvement, Goldgeier rejects any distinction between traditional Article V threats and those to be found outside the North Atlantic treaty area. Instead, he argues, these threats can be one and the same. If NATO is unable to recognize this reality and confront dangers wherever they arise, Goldgeier contends, American interest in the alliance will wane.

Examining a range of other issues, the report argues that NATO should expand its cooperation with non-European democracies, such as Australia and Japan; outlines steps to improve NATO's relations with Russia; and urges greater cooperation between NATO and the European Union. Finally, on the issue of enlargement, the report supports the current policy of keeping the door open to Georgia and Ukraine while recognizing that they will not join the alliance anytime soon.

NATO has been a cornerstone of security in Europeand of U.S. foreign policyfor six decades. But its ability to continue playing such a central role is unclear. The Future of NATO takes a sober look at what the alliance and its members must do to maintain NATO's relevance in the face of today's strategic environment. The result is an important work that combines useful analysis and practical recommendations for policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Educators: Access the Teaching Module for The Future of NATO.

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Thousands March in Greece Against NATO ‘Imperialists’ – teleSUR English

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Thousands of Greeks have taken to the streets to protest the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in a massive two-day anti-imperialist demonstration organized by the All-Workers Militant Front (PAME) in Thessaloniki.

RELATED: As NATO Meets, a Look at Its Deadly 'Peace' Operations

The demonstrators, many from various trade unions from both Greece and abroad, are protesting NATO interventions and military bases, chanting slogans such as "Murderers, thieves and hypocrites are the European imperialists!" and "Crisis, wars, uprooting, this is capitalism!"

Protesters marched through Thessaloniki's seafront avenue to demonstrate outside NATOs "Rapid Deployable Corps" headquarters.

Our enemies are not the neighboring people, but NATO and the bases," declared Giorgos Perro, part of PAME's Executive Committee.

Zeljko Veselinovic, president of the Serbian Trade Union SLOGA, on behalf of all foreign trade unions attending the rally, affirmed PAMEs solidarity to Greece's working class during NATOs 1999 bombings in the former Yugoslavia.

"We, the workers, are brothers regardless race, religion or skin color and that will be forever. Nobody is going to subdue us. We are stronger and they will never beat us", he stated.

Lieutenant-Colonel Papanastasis, a member of the "Movement for National Defense", former Greek army officers and politicians who rebelled, added, "We, the military officers, have passed the largest part of our life in the camps and have a first-hand knowledge of what 'NATO' means.

RELATED: NATO Could be Sued for Use of Depleted Uranium in Yugoslavia

We know the dimension of the dramatic consequences for the people, resulted by our country's participation on that. We know what blood-stained operational plans it has. Everyone knows the slaughtering of the people of Yugoslavia, as well as of other people," he continued.

The two-day demonstration ends Sunday with an international meeting of trade unions in the region.

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Arming YPG is against NATO alliance, rules, Erdoan says – Daily Sabah

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President Recep Tayyip Erdoan criticized Sunday the U.S.-led coalition support to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is dominated by the PKK terrorist group's Syrian wing People's Protection Forces (YPG), saying that these moves contradict with the NATO alliance.

Speaking at the Eid al-Fitr celebration meeting of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in Ankara, Erdoan said: "At one side we will be together in NATO but on the other side you will act together with terror organizations. Then NATO needs to be reassessed. All of these moves are against NATO."

"I pointed these out at the last meeting in Brussels. We will respond to every terror attack from Syria or Iraq to Turkey in their own land," Erdoan said.

The president also questioned the sincerity of assurances from the U.S. that the support will be ended once Daesh is defeated in Iraq and Syria. "Through the Operation Euphrates Shield, we had disrupted the initiative of establishing a terror corridor alongside our borders with Syria. Unfortunately, countries that we call allies, we had known as friends, do not see any problems in cooperating with terror groups that set their eyes on Turkey's territorial integrity. Those who think that they deceive Turkey by saying that they will take back the weapons given to this terror group will be taken back will understand that they made a vital mistake eventually but the damage will be done for them," Erdoan said, referring to the assurances of U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis in a letter to his Turkish counterpart Fikri Ik.

"We will bring the invoice of every drop of blood shed through those weapons before the actual owners of these weapons. We will not allow a terror state established in northern Syria, on our border," the president said, noting that the Turkish military will continue to do what is necessary just like it had done with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in a 2,000 square kilometers of land in Syria covering the towns of Jarablous, al- Rai, Dabiq and al-Bab.

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Baku F2: Nato wins as penalty thwarts charging Leclerc – Motorsport.com, Edition: Global

Posted: at 1:55 pm

Nato who led for most of the race after a gearbox problem eliminated early leader Oliver Rowland took his first victory of 2017 despite being passed by championship leader Leclerc, who was given a penalty for failing to slow for yellow flags.

DAMS driver Nicholas Latifi completed the podium as he finished over 10 seconds behind the battle for the lead.

At the start of the 21-lap race, Rowland attacked polesitter Ralph Boschung on the run to Turn 1 but the Campos Racing driver defended hard against the pitwall.

The tighter line meant Boschung went wide at the exit of the first corner, which gave Rowland the chance to dive up the inside for the left-hand Turn 2 and the Briton grabbed the lead under braking.

Rowland began to edge clear and Boschung came under attack from Nato, who lost his right front wing end plate against the rear of the Swiss driver's car as he went by on lap three.

Nato then started to home in on Rowland while Leclerc, who started down in eighth place after winning yesterday's feature race, began to pressure a gaggle of cars including Artem Markelov, Sergey Sirotkin and Jordan King.

Rowland's race ended suddenly when he encountered gearbox issues at the start of lap eight, which allowed Nato to move into the lead.

At the same time, Leclerc finally began to make progress as he blasted past Markelov using DRS on the pit straight and defended hard when the Russian Time driver hit back.

The Ferrari Formula 1 junior driver moved up two places in a thrilling move as he and Sirotkin used their DRS advantage to sweep either side of Boschung heading into Turn 1 on lap 10, and Leclerc dispatched the ART Grand Prix driver around the outside of the left-hander.

Leclerc was 10 seconds off the lead as he went past King with a familiar DRS blast on the main straight and he quickly closed in on Latifi, who was running second after Rapax's Nyck de Vries who been demonstrating his own speed to charge up to second retired down the Turn 3 escape road.

Prema Racing driver Leclerc eased past Latifi and then set fastest lap after fastest lap to chase down Nato for the lead.

But just as he was catching the French driver it was announced he was under investigation for failing to slow for yellow flags the same offence that led to four drivers, including a frustrated Rowland, getting penalties in the feature race.

Leclerc moved into the lead on lap 18 but just a few moments later his penalty was confirmed and his chances of emulating Antonio Giovinazzi's double win in Baku for Prema in 2016 disappeared.

King finished fourth ahead of Sirotkin, Markelov, Nobuharu Matsushita, Luca Ghiotto, and Boschung.

Sergio Sette Camara rounded out the top 10 for MP Motorsport.

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How NATO is getting serious about Russia – Macleans.ca

Posted: at 1:55 pm

German Army soldiers dismantle a bridge over the Neris river during the 2017 Iron Wolf exercise in Stasenai, Lithuania, June 20, 2017. (Ints Kalnins/Reuters)

The 2001 Lithuanian general census found the population of Stanai, a dot-on-the-map village whose existence is barely perceptible amid flat and verdant farmland northwest of Vilnius, to be 66 souls. By the next census, a decade later, the figure had fallen to 45. Earlier this week the population of Stanai and the fields around it swelled, suddenly and temporarily, to hundreds of soldiers from 11 NATO countries.

At 10 a.m.on Tuesday staff cars rolled up to a tent and disgorged a dozen dignitaries, including the President of Lithuania, Dalia Grybauskait, and the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg. A few minutes later the crowd, which included a multinational throng of journalists decked out in bright yellow MEDIA vests, crossed the street to observing stands on the bank of the meandering Neris river.

This is still a residential neighbourhood, albeit sparsely populated, so a few families left their farmhouses to peer curiously at what came next, which was a low-key but unmistakable show of force.

Seven M3 amphibious rigs, ungainly vehicles that can drive on roads or float on water, had joined together to form a bridge across the Neris. Three of the rigs were operated by the U.S. Army, four by the German Bundeswehr.

READ MORE: Macleans Explains: Why are Canadian troops going to Latvia?

On a signal delivered by a signal flare, heavy vehicles started rolling across the land bridge: armoured personnel carriers, tanks, motorized heavy equipment. Eventually dozens of vehicles had crossed the makeshift bridge. Combat helicopters hovered overhead. At one point a boat appeared, motoring up the river toward the bridge. This obliged the M3 operators to halt the motor traffic that had been rolling across their rigs, dismantle the bridge within a few minutes and chug upriver separately, allowing the boat to pass. Then two of the rigs returned to the landing and, operating together this time as a raft instead of a bridge, carried the last two tanks across the river.

In the final minute of the exercise, a roar in the eastern sky announced the arrival of an American B-1 bomber, which flew over the site of the exercise at low altitude. The amphibious bridges and tanks, their crews armed with weaponry ranging from personal sidearms to cannon, can deliver a certain amount of havoc and destruction. That single bomber could, if needed, deliver many multiples of the same. The point having been made, everyone repaired to white tents for news conferences and canaps.

The river crossing was a highlight of Day 9 of Multinational Exercise Iron Wolf, the summers major NATO training effort in Lithuania. Iron Wolf in turn is one part Exercise Saber Strike 17, a month of exercises across Poland and the Baltic countries, designed to build interoperability among 20 armies with widely varying capabilities, equipment, lore and traditions.

Saber Strike in turn is a bigger version of exercises that have been taking place with increasing frequency and intensity across Europe in recent years: Six Allied Spirit exercises since 2015. Atlantic Resolve exercises operating almost continuously. The immense Anaconda war game last year in Poland, the largest since the Cold War with 31,000 troops.

RELATED: Canadas mission to scare off Russia

NATO has been adding muscle and stepping up its exercise tempo since 2014, when Russian-backed troops and irregular fighters invaded Eastern Ukraine and annexed Crimea. Those operations took a giant step forward last summer: NATO heads of government met in a Warsaw soccer arena for a summit meeting at which they decided to set up multinational battlegroups across the region.

Those battlegroups are now in place. Canada commands the battalion in Latvia, with troops and equipment from Spain, Italy, Poland, Albania and Slovenia. The battlegroup in Poland is led by the United States; Great Britain commands the force in Estonia; and Germany is in charge of the battlegroup in Lithuania.

These soldiers, 4,530 in total as the spearhead of a 29-nation alliance, have set up shop with a clear mission. In the aftermath of Russias invasion of parts of Georgia in 2008, and parts of Ukraine in 2014, it has never been clear whether Vladimir Putin wants to take back any more of the territory that used to be part of the old Soviet Union. The most obvious targets are the Baltic countries, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. For a generation they were constitutionally part of the USSR. When they asserted their independence in late 1990, even so mild a Soviet ruler as Mikhail Gorbachev tried briefly to block their departure, sending tanks into Lithuania.

Unlike Georgia and Ukraine, the Baltic countries and Poland are members of NATO, whose central tenet is that an attack against one member will meet a response from all of them. But by 2014, almost a quarter-century after the Cold War ended, it was hardly obvious what that might mean in concrete terms, on NATOs home turf in Europe: A response from whom? With what manpower, equipment, doctrine and strategy?

In Warsaw the heads of government concentrated long enough to sketch answers. Now their soldiers are filling in the details. And soldiers tend to be attentive to detail. Iron Wolf was all about detail.

The exercise began with the American-led battlegroup rolling up from its base in Orzysz, in northern Poland, into Lithuania. That involved getting to know a crucial bit of real estate in intimate detail. The land bridge between the two countries is narrow, only 105 km of open land between the authoritarian-ruled country of Belarus and Kaliningrad, an isolated pocket of Russian jurisdiction on the Baltic Sea. This stretch of land is called the Suwalki Gap, after the Polish town in the middle of it.

If Russian troops, working alone or in concert with Belarusians, managed to seize control of the Suwalki Gap, the Baltic region would be cut off and vulnerable. So in part, Iron Wolf was about getting to know this crucial neighbourhood, learning how invaders might try to take it, and how defenders might need to cross it under fire.

After the bridge crossing show, the commander of the U.S.-led battlegroup that had come up from Poland, Lt.-Col Steven Gventer, 47, paused to discuss the mission with reporters. A broad-shouldered former high-school teacher, wearing camouflage face paint and with a 9mm pistol strapped to his chest, Gventer described in intricate detail the web of interactions his troops have already had with their colleagues, German, Lithuanian and other.

We start to run into one another over and over again, he said. So as large as NATO isgeographically, militarilywe are a small community that gets to know one another through these exercises. And that provides us with the common operating picture that weve already developed. That provides us with secure FM commsdependable radio frequenciesthat weve already trained. That allows us to use our fires capability army jargon for the ability to find and hit targets across international lines. For a sensor from the United Kingdom, a scout out front, to identify a target; call it through a U.S. battlegroup headquarters, who call it and clear it through a brigade fire direction centre that might be Italian or Lithuanian or Polish; and then call it right back down to guns that might be Polish, United States, it doesnt matter; and those guns reach out and put effects on the target.

Putting effects on a target is another way to talk about destroying it, but what Gventer was really discussing was an extended and methodical effort to iron the bugs out of a gigantic fighting machine.

NATO is starting to see the fruit of that long-term relationship that we start to build across national lines, he said. An understanding of what each others capabilities are. But also our weaknesses. The United States comes to the fight, at a battalion level, without air defence. But the Romanians provide us air defence. The United States doesnt necessarily have bridging capabilitythe river-crossing equipment that was the focus of the days demonstrationto the extent that we might want. But the U.K., the Italians, the Germans have bridging capabilities.

Gventer was turning into the best kind of source, the kind that talk a lot, so I googled him on my phone while he kept talking. He has had an eventful career. In 2004 he was in Sadr City, a violent Baghdad district, when an insurgent shot him through the calf with a machine gun. Two weeks later a rocket-propelled grenade hit a wall behind him and sent shrapnel into his shoulder.

It was a great time to be a commander, and to learn the trade, I guess, Gventer said when I asked him about his Iraq experience.

Now heres the thing. After the decade and a half the alliance has been through since 9/11, most of NATOs military leadership in central and eastern Europe has personal experience fighting under fire in Afghanistan or Iraq.

At Camp Adazi in Latvia I was surprised to learn that I know the commander of the Canadian-led battlegroup there. He came up to say hello. His name is Lt.-Col Wade Rutland, a red-haired guy with a ready smile. These days he is the commanding officer of 1st Battalion, Princess Patricias Canadian Light Infantry, based in Edmonton. In 2010 I spent two days visiting Rutland and the 200 soldiers he commanded inside a Soviet-built mountain fortress at Sperwan Ghar, in one of the most inhospitable corners of Kandahar province in Afghanistan.

Iraq and Afghanistan were deeply frustrating work for many of the soldiers who were deployed there. Every soldier I asked has already watchedWar Machine, the highly entertaining new Netflix movie that stars Brad Pitt as a lightly fictionalized version of the disgraced U.S. army general Stanley McChrystal. Some have seen it two or three times, and recited lines from the movie with relish. Its a parable about the futility of command in an environment where victory may not be possible. So these guys arent naive about the limitations of their craft.

But they also grew up in an environment where combat is not hypothetical and where small mistakes in the battlefield can kill. They did not grow up in a world of weekend passes. They are used to taking serious work seriously.

This is a much bigger fight, Gventer said when I asked him to compare Iraq to central Europe. The artillery capability of the enemy there was limited to rockets, very uncoordinated. What they lacked in accuracy they made up for in the number of rockets they would fire. But that said, the enemy didnt have the ability to counterbattery that is, to use sophisticated equipment to discern the origin of incoming fire and send accurate fire back to destroy the launchers. The enemy didnt have air forces. This enemy does. Large amounts of artillery and counter-artillery, those are the things that we now would be concerned about.

In Iraq, in other words, Gventer was fighting determined and inventive irregulars armed, for the most part, with what they could carry. Here in Stanai he was preparing to fight people whose methods and equipment much more closely match his own. A near-peer or peer template, as he put it.

There are other differences. In Iraq and Afghanistan, a near-permanent base would serve as the starting point for short-haul expeditions and raids. Whatever else soldiers went through, they would normally return to familiar surroundings each night. Now, we dont prepare to fight out of a base, Gventer said. Were gonna leave that base very quickly if we have to fight.

One reporter pointed out that the American battlegroup in Poland is the only one of the four new battalions that doesnt have tanks with it. Thats because the Poles have plenty of their own, unlike the armies of the smaller Baltic countries, Gventer said. The Polish bring a lot of armour. What they need is our ability to put light infantry in the woodline, near that armour, and destroy enemy armour forces coming towards them. We love having their armour; they love having our light infantry and our anti-tank capability. Its not a match made in heaven, but its close.

The goal of all of this deployment and training and even, to a great extent, of the coverage of it, of all those reporters in yellow MEDIA vests at Stanai is to make a great show of readiness so that if does have any thoughts of further military adventures, he will decide against them. In itself, the drum-beating carries its own risks of provocation and escalation.

NATO insists its plans are purely defensive, and every part of the Saber Strike maneuvers is designed to refine techniques for defending NATO territory within the confines of NATO territory. But one effect of the maneuvers was to send hundreds of tonnes of materiel into action in a ring of territory around Kaliningrad, an outpost Russia guards jealously. And NATO is not the only entity that has gotten into the relationship-building business: this month a three-ship Chinese convoy has been conducting exercises with the Russian navy in the Baltic Sea. So on the long list of nightmare scenarios here, one is that Western exercises designed to fend off a Russian attack could provoke one, or at least serve as a pretext for one. No part of this business is without serious risks.

But to Gventer, Rutland and the other battle-hardened soldiers leading the newly augmented NATO effort in Europe, there is no better way to avoid armed conflict than to prepare for it diligently. As Gventer put it: If the deterrence doesnt work, God forbid, then were capable to defend and were capable to be lethal in order to preserve the borders of NATO.

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How NATO is getting serious about Russia - Macleans.ca

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Supreme Court decides Takings Clause case as term winds down – Constitution Daily (blog)

Posted: at 1:53 pm

The Supreme Courthas ruled on an important test first posed by Justice William Brennan nearly 40 years ago about property rights, as Justice Anthony Kennedy sided with the Court's four liberal Justices on Friday.

In 1978, Brennan wrote for a 6-3 majority in the Penn Central v. New York City case that redefined property rights under the Fifth Amendments Takings Clause and also served as a foundation for historic preservation programs at a local level.

The current case in front of the Court, Murr v. Wisconsin, didn't involve a glamorous property such as Grand Central Station, the subject of Brennans opinion. Instead, the dispute was about a vacant vacation property, and if the parcel was part of a combined lot, or a parcel on its own.

On Friday, the majority 5-3 opinion written by Kennedy sided with the state of Wisconsin in the dispute, saying the test devised by Brennan was properly applied by the state, but that the courts also needed to include more than just Brennan's test in deciding similar disputes.

"The governmental action was a reasonable land-use regulation, enacted as part of a coordinated federal, state, and local effort to preserve the river and surrounding land," Kennedy said. "Like the ultimate question whether a regulation has gone too far, the question of the proper parcel in regulatory takings cases cannot be solved by any simple test. ...Courts must instead define the parcel in a manner that reflects reasonable expectations about the property."

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the dissent. "State law defines the boundaries of distinct parcels of land, and those boundaries should determine the 'private property' at issue in regulatory takings cases. Whether a regulation effects a taking of that property is a separate question, one in which common ownership of adjacent property may be taken into account," he said.

The Murr family has owned two riverfront lots since the 1960s; one of the lots contained a vacation cottage; the other lot wasnt developed. One lot was in the parents name while the other was in the name of a company owned by the family. The two lots were jointly conveyed to four of their children in 1994 and 1995.

In 2004, when the children began to explore selling the empty lot to pay for improvements in the cottage, they found out that a zoning law established in 1975 barred the children from selling the empty lot separate from the cottage because two adjoining lots were now owned by one entity. The zoning law also prohibited the development of the empty lot because it didnt meet minimum size requirements for an independent lot.

The dispute in front of the Supreme Court involved a concept called a parcel as a whole. In 1978, Brennan fashioned that test as part of the Penn Central decision.

A New York City commission prohibited the Penn Central Railroad from redeveloping Grand Central Station after two plans substantially changed the buildings historic look above the building. Penn Central sued, claiming it should receive full compensation for the air rights about Grand Central Station.

Brennan and the majority disagreed, saying the commissions decision wasnt a taking under the Fifth Amendment and that the railroad still could derive a reasonable economic return from the buildings use. The decision established a four-part test to determine if a property holder should receive just compensation under the Fifth Amendment if a government policy or action results in a taking of their property.

One of the four parts was called the parcel of a whole. Brennan said that this Court focuses rather both on the character of the action and on the nature and extent of the interference with rights in the parcel as a wholehere, the city tax block designated as the landmark site. In that context, the Court said the Grand Central building and the air space above it was one property in terms of the Fifth Amendments Takings Clause.

The Murr familys lawyerscited another landmark Supreme Court decision, Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council (1992), to support their claim that they should be able to sell the property or seek compensation from the government.

The Lucas decision said that the denial of all economic use of a property by a government regulation was a taking under the Fifth Amendment and required just compensation. The Wisconsin government has argued that the properties should be considered as a whole in the takings analysis, citing the Penn Central decision. The state appeals court ruled against the Murr family and the family filed an appeal with the Supreme Court, which was accepted in January 2016.

Scott Bomboy is the editor in chief of the National Constitution Center.

Filed Under: Fifth Amendment, Supreme Court

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Supreme Court decides Takings Clause case as term winds down - Constitution Daily (blog)

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