A lot of people don’t realize it, but, being able to hole a motivational speech is similar to having superpowers, mostly because it can allow you to completely change the lives of the people listening to you. However, according to Charles Milander, in order to become an amazing motivational speaker, one must first learn and ... Read more

The post Charles Milander Reveals The Key Components of a Motivational Speech appeared first on Star Two.

Botswana's new president Duma Boko used his inauguration on Friday to tell the world that he and his government were ushering in a "new political dawn".

The “Reading Peaceniks” The authors of this article are a group of researchers and practitioners who are looking to end the divisiveness of the “reading wars” — and help children learn to read and write with competence and pleasure. See the list of contributing editors as well as the 25 nationally recognized colleagues who support this effort.

The Cape South African Jewish Board of Deputies has asked the Equality Court in Cape Town to declare politician Mehmet Vefa Dag's social media posts about about Jewish people hate speech.

Trump asked the question: are you better now than when I was in office? America's answer could not have been more clear.

The post TRUMP TRIUMPHS: Victory Speech As He Completes The YUGE Comeback appeared first on Clash Daily.

Kamala was right about one thing: this election really DID deliver 'joy'... just not the way she expected.

The post EPIC: The ‘Songify’ Trend Of Clipping Speeches To Music Is Back… And AWESOME! appeared first on Clash Daily.

Nuclear stability for all put at risk by Putin's speech Explainer NCapeling 22 February 2023

Explaining the risks of Russia’s decision to suspend the New START nuclear treaty with the US, and the wider implications for international relations.

Why is New START important?

Following the collapse of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty (INF), New START is the only remaining nuclear arms control treaty between the US and Russia.

This means that without it there would be no limits on numbers or the type of Russian and US deployed nuclear warheads. The limits set under New START are lower than those set under its predecessor, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).

It is also important for maintaining some form of strategic arms control between Russia and the US. The treaty provides the US and Russia with mechanisms for transparency and confidence-building, for instance through regular biannual data exchanges, as well as measures for verification.

What is Russia able to do next after suspending participation?

President Vladimir Putin’s decision to suspend its participation could pave the way for Russia to increase the number of deployed warheads, delivery vehicles and launchers, potentially exceeding the limits placed on numbers under the new START.

Putin stated he would resume testing of nuclear weapons if the US resumed – Russia is a full state party to the nuclear Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) negotiated in 1996, as is the UK and France. The US has signed, as has China, but neither state has yet ratified the treaty.

Other countries required to ratify the treaty for it to enter into force include Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan.

Although the US is modernizing its nuclear weapons forces, there is no need – or plan – for the US to test nuclear warheads, and it is the same for the UK and France.

Concerns are now rising that Russia could point to no-fissionable yield experiments – which are allowed under the treaty and which the US and other nuclear weapons possessors conduct primarily for safety purposes – and then falsely declare those to be nuclear weapons tests, thus paving the way for a narrative to justify the resumption of nuclear testing by Russia.

Conducting a nuclear weapons test would be seen clearly as a further step on the escalation scale towards nuclear use for Russia.

While inspections of nuclear weapons sites had not resumed since COVID-19, Russia’s suspension of its participation could result in the further halting of other transparency and verification measures under New START, including the regular mutual data exchanges between the US and Russia – for example on warhead numbers, locations, and technical information on weapons systems and their sites – which are conducted through the Bilateral Consultative Commission (BCC).

What is the difference between withdrawing from New START and ‘suspending’ participation?

In his speech, Putin announced the suspension of Russian participation in New START. While this does not mean Russia has formally withdrawn from the treaty, the suspension could enable Russia to continue preventing the US from inspecting its nuclear weapons sites and halt Russia’s participation in other obligations, such as the routine reporting and data exchanges on nuclear weapons as well as meetings of the BCC.

The decision to suspend participation rather than withdraw from the treaty means Russia retains the option to return to compliance at a later point. However, it is not yet clear under what conditions Russia would opt to return to compliance with the treaty, or whether this means the US will, in turn, suspend their own obligations.

The treaty text itself does not provide for a suspension of participation by parties to the treaty. However, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties does address the mechanisms for suspension of participation in a treaty. Russia is a full state party to the Vienna Convention, but the US has remained a signatory without ratification since 1970.

There is a precedent of Russia suspending its membership in arms control treaties rather than withdrawing, which is when Russia suspended its participation in the original Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) in 2007.

The US does not recognize Russia’s suspension of its participation in the CFE treaty, but this does not make a material difference to Russian actions.

What does the suspension mean for the wider international treaty regime?

Russia’s suspension of the New START could signal the end of strategic arms control between the two countries. There is now virtually no regular scheduled arms control communication between the two countries bilaterally – this is a dangerous position to be in, especially in times of crisis.

The suspension of New START further erodes limited recourse for communication between the two countries, by suspending information exchange and meetings of the BCC under the treaty.

This is likely to have wider implications for progress on nuclear non-proliferation under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), as well as the wider international security treaty regime.

Will this increase the nuclear threat or the likelihood of nuclear use?

New START provides both the US and Russia with a degree of transparency surrounding nuclear weapons systems. Without an avenue for regular data exchange and notification, and mechanisms for verification through mutual nuclear weapons site inspections, the risk of misperception or misunderstanding could increase and fuel uncertainty which could increases the perception of threat between Russia and the US.

What are Putin’s reasons for suspending Russia’s participation?

Putin and various members of his government have been linking the future of New START to the war in Ukraine rhetorically for several months now, threatening that Russia may not be willing to negotiate a follow-on treaty for when New START expires in Feb 2026 because of US support for Ukraine.

By announcing Russia’s suspension of the treaty in his main address on the anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine, Putin is sending a signal about Russia’s intent for the future.

Russia’s new hypersonic glide vehicle Avangard was already counted under New START and it is likely follow-on negotiations would have focused on some of Russia’s other hypersonic capabilities or other new nuclear systems.

Without the treaty, Russia might be less inhibited in its development of new nuclear systems.

Have both the US and Russia been compliant with the treaty until now?

Both the US and Russia have remained within the central limits of the treaty since its entry into force in 2011. Following the outbreak of COVID-19, both sides agreed to suspend in-person inspections due to restrictions on travel, and attempts to recommence in-person inspections in 2022 were unsuccessful.

In August 2022, Russia prevented US on-site inspections under New START and a November 2022 meeting of the BCC was called off by Russian officials. Russia has blamed both the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the sanctions burden on Russia as reasons for not wanting to resume inspections.

Undergraduate students in the Penn State Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders traveled to Belize during spring break 2024 to help provide speech and audiology support to children and teens in the middle-income nation.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE: Division of Professional Regulation

[Ghanaian Times] The Chairperson of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Ms Kathleen Addy, has cautioned Ghanaians against hate speech as it could cause conflict in the lead-up to the General Election.

Aliyev criticises Western nations' stance on fossil fuels at COP29 opening speech

to give a damn good speech

Title: Teen's Democratic Convention Speech Brings Awareness to Stuttering
Category: Health News
Created: 8/28/2020 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/28/2020 12:00:00 AM

Jan 24, 2024

In this Q&A, Joseph S. Nye talks about his advice for the interim and future president of Harvard in the wake of Claudine Gay's resignation, which countries should be highest on our radar to prevent the threat of nuclear war, what role the U.S. should play in the Russia-Ukraine war, the significance of U.S. alliances in the Middle East, and more.

Advice you don't want from a maniac you don't trust.

Babies' early sounds are more intentional than previously believed. Dr. Su, an assistant professor at The University of Texas at Dallas, co-authored two

A new study showed that ba region called the "dorsal precentral gyrus" the part of the brain that crosses the folded surface and it plays a very important

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Houndmills, Basingstoke : The Macmillan Press, 1988.

Maria Ressa spoke with Steven Levy at WIRED25 about the numerous trumped-up charges facing her and her publication, Rappler, and the terrible power Facebook can have when used by bad actors.

Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change, addresses the importance of holding social media platforms accountable in regards to freedom of speech.

IEEE Computer Society

IEEE Computer Society

Cambridge [Cambridgeshire] ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1987

Chetan Bhattacharji, who is at Baku for the first week of negotiations and The Hindu’s Jacob Koshy, will guide us through high-stakes conversations at COP29 at 5 p.m. on November 12

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President Obama has been under intense scrutiny for what he would do about climate change ever since he was elected in 2008. Part of that scrutiny takes place during his State of the Union Speech, when renewable energy proponents search for key words about solar and wind energy and count how often he mentions "climate change."

A anti-terrorism court on Saturday adjourned the hearing of cases pertaining to anti-state and hate speeches against leaders of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan and London factions without any proceedings because of the coronavirus lockdown.The hearings of as many as 27 identical cases was...

On May 17, while delivering a graduation speech to cadets at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, a scandal-plagued President Donald Trump took the opportunity to complain, yet again, about the news media. No leader in history, he said, has been treated as unfairly as he has been. Shortly thereafter, when the graduates presented Trump with a ceremonial sword, a live mic picked up Homeland Security chief John F. Kelly telling the president, "Use that on the press, sir!"

Kelly was presumably joking, but the press isn't laughing. Presidents have complained bitterly about reporters since George Washington ("infamous scribblers"), but Trump has gone after the media with a venom unmatched by any modern president—including Richard Nixon. At campaign rallies, Trump herded reporters into pens, where they served as rhetorical cannon fodder, and things only got worse after the election. Prior to November 8, the media were "scum" and "disgusting." Afterward, they became the "enemy of the American people." (Even Nixon never went that far, noted reporter Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame. Nixon did refer to the press as "the enemy," but only in private and without "the American people" part—an important distinction for students of authoritarianism.) 

On April 29, the same day as this year's White House Correspondents' Dinner (which Trump boycotted), the president held a rally in Pennsylvania to commemorate his first 100 days. He spent his first 10 minutes or so attacking the media: CNN and MSNBC were "fake news." The "totally failing New York Times" was getting "smaller and smaller," now operating out of "a very ugly office building in a very crummy location." Trump went on: "If the media's job is to be honest and tell the truth, then I think we would all agree the media deserves a very, very big, fat failing grade. [Cheers.] Very dishonest people!"

Trump's animosity toward the press isn't limited to rhetoric. His administration has excluded from press briefings reporters who wrote critical stories, and it famously barred American media from his Oval Office meeting with Russia's foreign minister and ambassador to the United States while inviting in Russia's state-controlled news service.

Before firing FBI Director James Comey, Trump reportedly urged Comey to jail journalists who published classified information. As a litigious businessman, the president has expressed his desire to "open up" libel laws. In April, White House chief of staff Reince Preibus acknowledged that the administration had indeed examined its options on that front.

This behavior seems to be having a ripple effect: On May 9, a journalist was arrested in West Virginia for repeatedly asking a question that Tom Price, Trump's health secretary, refused to answer. Nine days later, a veteran reporter was manhandled and roughly escorted out of a federal building after he tried (politely) to question an FCC commissioner. Montana Republican Greg Gianforte won a seat in the House of Representatives last week, one day after he was charged with assaulting a reporter who had pressed Gianforte for his take on the House health care bill. And over the long weekend, although it could be a coincidence, someone fired a gun of some sort at the offices of the Lexington Herald-Leader, a paper singled out days earlier by Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, who likened journalists to "cicadas" who "don't actually seem to care about Kentucky."

Where is all of this headed? It's hard to know for sure, but as a lawyer (and former newspaper reporter) who has spent years defending press freedoms in America, I can say with some confidence that the First Amendment will soon be tested in ways we haven't seen before. Let's look at three key areas that First Amendment watchdogs are monitoring with trepidation.

 

Abusive Subpoenas

The First Amendment offers limited protections when a prosecutor or a civil litigant subpoenas a journalist in the hope of obtaining confidential notes and sources. In the 1972 case of Branzburg v. Hayes, a deeply divided Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution does not shield reporters from the obligation of complying with a grand jury subpoena. But the decision left room for the protection of journalists who refuse to burn a source in other contexts—in civil cases, for instance, or in criminal cases that don't involve a grand jury. Some lower courts have ruled that the First Amendment indeed provides such protections.

The Constitution, of course, is merely a baseline for civil liberties. Recognizing the gap left by the Branzburg ruling, a majority of the states have enacted shield laws that give journalists protections that Branzburg held were not granted by the Constitution. Yet Congress, despite repeated efforts, has refused to pass such a law. This gives litigants in federal court, including prosecutors, significant leverage to force journalists into compliance. (In 2005, Judith Miller, then of the New York Times, spent 85 days in jail for refusing to reveal her secret source to a federal grand jury investigating the outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent. The source, Miller eventually admitted, was Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.)

Trump will almost certainly take advantage of his leverage. He and his innermost circle have already demonstrated that they either fail to understand or fail to respect (or both) America's long-standing tradition of restraint when it comes to a free press. During the campaign, Trump tweeted that Americans who burn the flag—a free-speech act explicitly protected by the Supreme Court—should be locked up or stripped of citizenship "perhaps." In December, after the New York Times published a portion of Trump's tax returns, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski declared that executive editor Dean Baquet "should be in jail."

Trump took over the reins from an executive branch that was arguably harder on the press than any administration in recent history. President Barack Obama oversaw more prosecutions of leakers under the vaguely worded Espionage Act of 1917 than all other presidents combined, and he was more aggressive than most in wrenching confidential information from journalists.

Over the course of two months in 2012, Obama's Justice Department secretly subpoenaed and seized phone records from more than 100 Associated Press reporters, potentially in violation of the department's own policies. Thanks to the rampant overclassification of government documents, Obama's pursuit of whistleblowers meant that even relatively mundane disclosures could have serious, even criminal, consequences for the leaker. Under Obama, McClatchy noted in 2013, "leaks to media are equated with espionage."

One can only assume Trump will up the ante. His administration's calls to find and prosecute leakers grow more strident by the day. He and his surrogates in Congress have repeatedly tried to divert public discussion away from White House-Russia connections and in the direction of the leaks that brought those connections to light. It stands to reason that Trump's Justice Department will try to obtain the sources, notes, and communication records of journalists on the receiving end of the leaks.

This could already be happening without our knowledge, and that would be a dangerous thing. Under current guidelines, the Justice Department is generally barred from deploying secret subpoenas for journalists' records—subpoenas whose existence is not revealed to those whose records are sought. But there are exceptions: The attorney general or another "senior official" may approve no-notice subpoenas when alerting the subject would "pose a clear and substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation." 

The guidelines are not legally binding, in any case, so there may be little to prevent Jeff Sessions' Justice Department from ignoring them or scrapping them entirely. Team Trump has already jettisoned the policies of its predecessors in other departments, and it's pretty clear how Trump feels about the press. 

The use of secret subpoenas against journalists is deeply problematic in a democracy. Their targets lack the knowledge to consult with a lawyer or to contest the subpoena in court. The public, also in the dark, is unable to pressure government officials to prevent them from subjecting reporters to what could be abusive fishing expeditions.

As president, Trump sets the tone for executives, lawmakers, and prosecutors at all levels. We have already seen a "Trump effect" in the abusive treatment of a reporter in the halls of the Federal Communications Commission, the arrest of the reporter in West Virginia, and the attack by Congressman-elect Gianforte.

We are also seeing the Trump effect in state legislatures, where the president's rants may have contributed to a spate of legislative proposals deeply hostile to free speech, including bills that would essentially authorize police brutality or "unintentional" civilian violence against protesters and make some forms of lawful protest a felony. A leader who normalizes the use of overly broad or abusive subpoenas against journalists could cause damage all across the land.
 

Espionage Laws

A second area of concern is the Espionage Act of 1917, a law that has been used for nearly a century to prosecute leakers of classified information—from Daniel Ellsburg and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning. The government hasn't ever tried to use it to prosecute the journalists or media organizations that publish the offending leaks—possibly because it was seen as a bad move in a nation that enshrines press protections in its founding document. But free-speech advocates have long been wary of the possibility.

The successful prosecution of a journalist under the Espionage Act seems unlikely—a long string of Supreme Court decisions supports the notion that reporters and news outlets are immune from civil or criminal liability when they publish information of legitimate public interest that was obtained unlawfully by an outside source. "A stranger's illegal conduct," the court's majority opined in the 2001 Bartnicki v. Vopper case, "does not suffice to remove the First Amendment shield about a matter of public concern." But like any appellate decision, the Bartnicki ruling is based on a specific set of facts. So there are no guarantees here.
 

Litigious Billionaires

Very, very rich people with grievances against the press are as old as the press itself. But the number of megawealthy Americans has exploded in recent years, as has the number of small, nonprofit, or independent media outlets—many of which lack ready access to legal counsel. In short, billionaires who wish to exact vengeance for unflattering coverage enjoy a target-rich environment.

Trump did not create this environment. But from his presidential bully pulpit, he has pushed a narrative that can only fuel the fire. The Trumpian worldview holds that the media deserves to be put in its place; the press is venal, dishonest, and "fake" most of the time. It should be more subject to legal liability so that, in his words, "we can sue them and win lots of money."

Win or lose, a billionaire with an ax to grind and a fleet of expensive lawyers can cause enormous damage to a media outlet, particularly one with limited means (which, these days, is most media outlets). Some lawsuits by deep-pocketed plaintiffs, like the one filed against Mother Jones by Idaho billionaire Frank VanderSloot (a case I helped defend), are ultimately dismissed by the courts. Others, such as Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker Media—funded by Silicon Valley billionaire and Trump adviser Peter Thiel—succeed and put the media outlet out of business. Another recent suit, filed by Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson against a Wall Street Journal reporter, ultimately settled.

Regardless of the outcome of such cases, the message to the media is clear: Don't offend people who have vast resources. Even a frivolous lawsuit can stifle free speech by hitting publishers where it hurts (the wallet) and subjecting them to legal harassment. This is especially so in the 22 states that lack anti-SLAPP statutes—laws that facilitate the rapid dismissal of libel claims without merit.

The VanderSloot lawsuit is instructive. Although a court in Idaho ultimately threw out all the billionaire's claims against Mother Jones, the process took almost two years. During that time, VanderSloot and Mother Jones engaged in a grueling regimen of coast-to-coast depositions and extensive and costly discovery and legal motions. Along the way, VanderSloot sued a former small-town newspaper reporter and subjected him to 10 hours of depositions, which resulted in the reporter breaking down in tears while VanderSloot, who had flown to Portland for the occasion, looked on. VanderSloot also deposed the journalist's ex-boyfriend and threatened to sue him until he agreed to recant statements he had made online.

Victory did not come cheap for Mother Jones: The final tab was about $2.5 million, only part of which was covered by insurance. And because Idaho lacks an anti-SLAPP statute, none of the magazine's legal costs could be recovered from VanderSloot.

Despite his threats, Trump has not brought any libel lawsuits as president—but his wife has. First lady Melania Trump sued the Daily Mail in February over a story she said portrayed her falsely "as a prostitute." The Daily Mail retracted the offending article with a statement explaining (a) that the paper did not "intend to state or suggest that Mrs. Trump ever worked as an 'escort' or in the sex business," (b) that the article "stated that there was no support for the allegations," and (c) that "the point of the article was that these allegations could impact the U.S. presidential election even if they are untrue."

So which billionaire will be next to sue, and who will the target be? The question looms over America's media organizations like a dark cloud. That is an unacceptable situation in a nation whose Constitution guarantees "robust, uninhibited and wide-open" discussion of public issues, as Supreme Court Justice William Brennan wrote in the landmark First Amendment case New York Times v. Sullivan.

Trump has yet to act on his most outrageous rhetorical attacks on the media and free speech, but it's likely only a matter of time. When he does act, it will be important to remember that constitutional protections are quite broad, and that there's only so much any White House can do to the press without the backing of Congress or the courts. Such cooperation is hardly out of the question, though. Stranger things have already happened in this strangest of political times.

The author's views do not necessarily reflect those of the First Amendment Coalition's board of directors.

Sincerity is an increasingly rare commodity among our leaders, but sombre addresses by the Queen and Germany’s president had it in spades

Public suspicion is often aroused by the neat use of rhetoric, or by hearing a clever trick of speech. It is understandable that a stylish phrase or a persuasive analogy from the mouth of an authority figure should be met with caution.

Many are now also wary of the comparisons with the Second World War that are lobbed at the population each week by politicians, for the globe is not waging a military campaign or fighting a battle, there is no violent human enemy to defeat. Instead, we are all engaged in a unique and sustained mass experiment in protection and survival.

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