In News: Win for Democracy; Role of Media; Kari Lake's Election Denialists; Abortion; Herschel Walker; Russian Genocide in Ukraine

Tim Miller, "Democracy was on the ballot. And attempts to end it were met with universal scorn," insists, pace pundits who want to downplay the role concern about embattled democracy played in the recent U.S. elections, democracy was, indeed, on the ballot — and it performed well: 

As GOP Channels Putin: Commentary on Republican Long Game in Cozying Up to Russia's Strongman Autocrat

Heather Cox Richardson, "Letters from an American, 7 December 2019":

In June 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that democracy is obsolete. He believes that a few oligarchs should run the world while the rest of us do as we are told, and he is doing his best to destroy both American democracy and the international structures, like NATO, that hold it in place. The interests of reactionary American leaders and Russian president Putin run parallel. Astonishingly, that affinity has recently come out into the open. Some of our leaders are publicly echoing Putin’s propaganda, apparently willing to work with him to undermine the principles on which our nation rests so long as it means they can stay in power. 

Will we permit the destruction of American democracy on our watch?

Trifecta of Bad News for Man in White House Yesterday: "President's Longtime Personal Lawyer, Longtime Executive at his Business, Pled Guilty to a Cover-Up, a Criminal Cover-Up"

Donald Trump's day so far:

- Michael Cohen sells him out on Trump Tower Moscow
- Trump has meltdown on White House lawn
- Trump panics, cancels Putin meeting
- Deutsche Bank raided
- Trump's former tax attorney raided
- Cohen also sells out Trump's kids
- It's still only noon

— Palmer Report (@PalmerReport) November 29, 2018

More Reports on Shared Goal of Putin and U.S. White Evangelicals: Deconstructing Democracy

The story reported by Peter Montgomery, which I shared with you on Friday — that the neo-Confederate League of the South, classified as a hate group by Southern Poverty Law Center, is inaugurating a Russian-language section on its website — has now been reported by other venues including Newsweek and The Hill. As Peter Montgomery reports (and this is echoed in the other two articles I've linked; I'm also repeating what I posted Friday),

God, Guns, and White Supremacy: More Valuable Commentary about U.S. White Evangelicals' Infatuation with Strongman Putin and What's Driving It

I keep trying to think of a historical explanation for the nonchalance of GOP leaders and voters about treason at the highest levels of government now, after the Southern strategy gave the GOP a solid base of white evangelical voters from the Old Confederac—

Oh, wait.

— 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖 𝙳. 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜𝚎𝚢 (@wdlindsy) July 17, 2018

Here's some more commentary for you that I've read today, which shows the clear connections between the white supremacist nationalism that binds together white evangelicals in the U.S. and Russia, as white American evangelicals look to Putin's authoritarian assault on democracy as a model for an American society in which a religious minority will be, they hope, permitted to impose their moral and religious ideas on the majority by force:

More National Prayer Breakfast Commentary: "The [Republican] Party Needs to Face That Element Within Them, Which Is Essentially a White-Supremacist Element That Putin Is Playing"

More good commentary about the connection of the National Prayer Breakfast to the treasonous behavior of the political party now controlling the U.S. federal government — this commentary has come to my attention since I posted my collection of other pieces early today:

Valuable Commentary on National Prayer Breakfast and Treasonous Behavior of GOP Leaders: "#Nationalprayerbreakfast Is All Over the Affidavit for Russian Spy Maria Butina"

If you want to understand the Russian connection to U.S. right-wing white evangelicals — who are absolutely on board with treason to achieve their goals — you owe it to yourself to read @C_Stroop and @JeffSharlet. No one knows more about this than these two scholars.

— 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖 𝙳. 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜𝚎𝚢 (@wdlindsy) July 17, 2018

I'm pleased to see that the important thread I identified three days ago in the unfolding story of the treasonous activities of top Republican leaders — the centrality of the National "Prayer" Breakfast to the story — is receiving a lot of media attention. Here's commentary I'd like to share with you:

The Long and Short of It: Evangelical Mulligans and Idiot Winds — Religion in the News

“Family Research Council head says that evangelical conservatives are willing to overlook Trump’s past behavior so long as he delivers for them on policy” https://t.co/4I5tGy4WcZ

— Jonathan Merritt (@JonathanMerritt) January 23, 2018 

"We don't care how many women he has abused, cheated on, or objectified. We don't care how many black people he insults. We don't care how many refugees he turns away or non-American Christians he sends back to persecution, as long he helps US." US = white, American, men. https://t.co/h7HS0Drp1A

— Rachel Held Evans (@rachelheldevans) January 23, 2018

Russian Propaganda, Critical-Thinking Skills, and How the Christian Right Broke America: Valuable Recent Contributions to the Discussion

Without the education necessary to think critically, challenge what you’re told by ppl you respect, & vet info, you can fall for anything

— Mandy Nicole (@TenaciousMandy) November 1, 2017

Good, Bad, Ugly: Week in News — "We Judge This to Be Hypocrisy Unprecedented in the History of American Politics"

Journalists know: When leaders go berserk, furiously denying there's anything going on, blaming others--that's when you're getting close.

— Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) March 4, 2017

The past week in tweets and newsfeed, as I've captured it for you readers (reflecting my  preoccupation with matters like the obligation to speak truth and defend the least among us, and what happens to social groups that succumb to moral vacuity and do not push back against leaders channeling dark, destructive energies):

Brittmarie Janson Perez, "On the Informal Powers Trump Brings to the Presidency"

I'm honored today to have an outstanding, timely, minatory (as in, warning us of a threat we'd be foolish to ignore) essay to share with you from Brittmarie Janson Perez, entitled "On the Informal Powers Trump Brings to the Presidency." Brittie's essay follows:

The Weaponization of Christmas and What Trump's White Christian Supporters Want: Selections from Recent Commentary

PRRI, " 'Merry Christmas' vs. 'Happy Holidays' "

A pre-Christmas smorgasbord of items I've read in the past few days, in which you may be interested:

End-of-Week News Roundup: Russia as Republican Paradise

Brief Takes from Week's News Commentary: Russia, Russia, Russia (and Nigeria)

Russia: 

Homophobia is all but dead, they say. Think again. What’s going on in Russia is absolutely terrifying.  

Catholic Families and Human Rights Institute Simultaneously Defends Putin's Anti-Gay Regime and Attacks U.N. Committee Report on Vatican: Making the Connections

In my posting earlier today about Jeff Sharlet on the lives of gay Russians, I linked to Peter Montgomery's latest Religion Dispatches roundup of weekly global news stories about LGBT rights. There's a detail in Montgomery's article to which I'd like to draw readers' attention:

Jeff Sharlet on Life Inside Russia's Iron Closet: A Must-Read Report

As Peter Montgomery says in his recap of global LGBT stories this week at Religion Dispatches, Jeff Sharlet's GQ report on being gay in Russia is a must-read article. It's chock-full of powerful first-hand testimony about the lives of LGBTI Russians. And it explains in detail how and why Putin has chosen to hand these citizens over to the wolves in order to consolidate his power--and the role being played in that cynical, cruel process by the Orthodox Church and the American religious right.

As the Games Begin: Three Videos to Remind Us of What's Really Happening in Russia

As the Sochi Olympics begin, three videos to remind us of what's happening in Russia outside the bright lights of the carefully managed spectacle--and (third video) elsewhere in the world, as neo-Nazi groups akin to those now given free rein to beat and kill gay people in Russia march through the streets of Paris shouting hate slogans:

Provocative One-Liners from This Week's News: Pete, SOTU, Women and Their Place, The Gays, Etc.

One-liners (loosely speaking, in two cases) about what's in the news now: Pete Seeger, reactions to the U.S. State of the Union Address, women and their place, gays, etc.:

News: Bro Porn, G. Gänswein & Pain, Gays & Russia, Children & Eating, Cruelty & Irresponsibility, Greed & Prosperity, Mandela's Legacy

Some one-liners that have leapt out at me in articles I've read recently:

Final Two Installments in Miranda Blue's Series on Globalizing Homophobia and Role of U.S. Religious Right

Miranda Blue has now published the final two installments in her Right Wing Watch series about the role of the religious right in globalizing homophobia (especially in Russia). I blogged about the first two essays in the series several days ago. I'm grateful to reader Chris Morley for pointing out in a comment responding to that posting that the other essays in the series have now been published.