As I’ve said before, it’s always a great boost when I find ideas I’ve been espousing myself in a professional, reputable source. Anne Applebaum is a recognized scholar on Eastern Europe and its history since World War II; she has written a magisterial book on the subject. (So magisterial that I found it impossible to read, but her scholarship is undeniable.) She has also been smeared by Breitbart News, a distinction that always adds credence to anyone in my book!

So she has an excellent article in the Washington Post today, saying about the Trump/Russian revelations basically what I said about the Access Hollywood tapes: Why is anyone surprised or shocked? It’s only reinforcement of what we already knew. She also says, “How could salacious Russian “ kompromat ,” or compromising material, be used to blackmail someone as shameless as Trump?”

Good question, Anne! Read the article in full:

“Stop obsessing over ‘secrets’ about Trump and Russia. What we already know is bad enough.”

Just in case you’re out of the loop (as in that you have a real life and so don’t spend every free moment checking news sites),  a new eruption has occurred as of last night just before Trump’s “news” conference today. Buzzfeed, a web outlet that apparently started out as more of a clickbait site but has been trying to reposition itself as a purveyor of legitimate news, released a 35-page intel document that purports to outline extremely damaging information about Trump’s personal life that the Russian government has been using/will use to get the PEOTUS to go along with whatever they want. In other words, blackmail material. There is also supposed evidence that the Trump campaign actively collaboratedwith the Russians during the campaign. The leak in the dam that led to this news leak was the addition of a two-page summary of this material (as well as some other data, perhaps–that part isn’t clear) to the intel briefing that Trump received last Friday about Russian hacking during the election. Buzzfeed then decided to go ahead with publishing the entire document (which has been floating around for months, apparently, with no one being willing to publish it because it was unverifiable). I haven’t yet seen a reputable mainstream news outlet praising Buzzfeed; condemnation seems pretty much universal. (I link to one such article below.)

The man who is PEOTUS Trump’s nominee for Attorney General of the US was denied a position as a US District Attorney back in 1986 when his nomination was killed by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Back then, and now, the focus was on his supposed racism. Now that he’s up for AG, those charges are on the table again. Is he or isn’t he?

But that’s the wrong question, at least partly because the answer is unknowable. The same two minor incidents keep coming up in the discussion: that he made a joke about the KKK and that he called a black lawyer “boy.”

about Michael Savage.

Just a little. I’m pretty wimpy.

​I’ve been saying for awhile now that I wanted to do some posts about the various sources I’ve run across, good and bad, since I got started reading about political matters this summer. Originally I envisioned some sort of annotated list, but my ideas have expanded quite a bit since then. I just had no idea what all was out there. (“Out there” would be a good description for some of them.) I was, of course, familiar with Rush Limbaugh, and indeed had had a brief time about a decade ago when I listened to him during lengthy commutes. It didn’t take me long to get completely disgusted with him, though. And I had read something about Alex Jones during that same time, I believe in a Washington Post Magazine article, that painted him as a loony but basically harmless all-night call-in radio broadcaster. And I had heard of Breitbart, I think from some forwarded material. They seemed a bit . . . extreme.

Can we learn from the mistakes of other nations as we look forward (in a way) to the inauguration of Donald Trump as President?  I hope and pray that we can. The comparisons to other right-wing populist leaders are pretty chilling.

The opinions of those who have actually lived in countries that are experiencing similar issues to ours have weight that outside sources don’t. We can’t afford to just sit back and relax, folks! Our republic is a product of our vigilance.

Here are some takeaways from Miklos Haraszti, a Hungarian author and director of research on human rights:

Hungary, my country, has in the past half-decade morphed from an exemplary post-Cold War democracy into a populist autocracy. . . . The world is looking at the United States now in a way that we never thought would be possible: fretting that the “deals” of its new president will make the world’s first democracy more similar to that of the others. I wish we onlookers could help the Americans in making the most out of their hard-to-change Constitution. We still are thankful for what they gave to the world, and we will be a bit envious if they can stop the fast-spreading plague of national populism.

Read the entire article here:

“I watched a populist leader rise in my country. That’s why I’m genuinely worried for America.”

Seems like an appropriate topic for the Christmas season, doesn’t it? An examination of the political/religious situation in the little town of Bethlehem. (Not so little, as you can see in the picture.)  Did you know that the mayor of Bethlehem is an Arab Christian? I sure didn’t.

At some point soon I want to track down and post material from the Christian partor Victor Sadaka on the situation, but for now I’ll post the following.

The problem with the issues in this part of the world are the same as the ones in any part of the world: they defy simple explanations or solutions. But nuanced, informed discussion is becoming less and less easy to come by in our increasingly polarized politics. If your position can’t be summed up in a sentence or two, forget it! But there are reasonable voices out there, if only we will listen to them. So, as you sit among the detritus of yesterday’s present-unwrapping spree, I’d encourage you to read the following.

“Evangelicals side with Israel. That’s Hurting Palestinian Christians.”

As a followup to the article I posted yesterday about the controversy surrounding Russell Moore’s opposition to Trump I have two more, one which is addressed to evangelicals in general and one which specifically deals with the Moore issue. You’ll notice that the second article is yet another one by the estimable David French.

As Fench points out, Moore never condemned anyone personally for supporting Trump, and he recognized that there were people who genuinely agonized over their choice to vote for him. But he refused to excuse the Trump cheerleading that went on in many Southern Baptist churches, and indeed in Evangelical churches as a whole. As French pointed out in his article I posted yesterday,

“It’s almost as if Trump said what he needed to say to win the election, without regard for the truth or the consequences. Imagine that!