All is not well in Russia. The unknown future, however, should worry us even more.
Vladimir Putin
Matt Lewis: Today’s GOP would’ve rooted for Ivan Drago
Here is Matt Lewis at The Daily Beast: At some point in my lifetime, the Republican Party went from saying, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” to effectively telling Russia’s current leader, “Mr. Putin, invade our NATO allies.” I’m left wondering how […]
Alexi Navalny dies in a Russian prison. He was 47.
Here is NBC News: Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has died in prison, the country’s state media reported Friday, ending a yearslong fight against corruption and the Kremlin that saw him survive several poisoning attempts. He was 47. A prominent critic of […]
Dictators R Us
It’s been a good PR spring and summer for dictators, old and new. Earlier in the spring, an article in the American Conservative waxed poetically over Vlad the Impaler’s leadership lessons for the rest of us. Some conservatives, in the […]
Bonnie Kristian reviews Guriev and Treisman, Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century for Mere Orthodoxy
We may have thought that the age of dictators (mostly, sort of) ended with the twentieth century, but in this insightful book review of a timely book for Mere Orthodoxy, Bonnie Kristian directs us to the development of twenty-first century’s […]
Should we start preparing for a Ukrainian victory?
While we were all watching coverage of Queen Elizabeth II’s death, the Ukrainian army was taking back towns occupied by Russian troops. Here is a taste of Anne Applebaum’s recent piece at The Atlantic: But even though the fighting may […]
This woman is not alone
She probably represents a small part of the population, but people like this are out there. Watch:
Rod Dreher says that America has “few champions” like Viktor Orban, but Florida governor Ron DeSantis gives him “hope”
We covered this yesterday, but Dreher continues to drool all over of the pro-Putin/anti-Zelensky Hungarian president. Here is a taste of his post: “Viktor Organ or Joe Biden?: We cultural conservatives in America have very few champions like Orban. Maybe […]
Even the devil can quote scripture
Shakespeare was right in the “The Merchant of Venice.” In a Hitler-like rally in Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium, the site of the 2018 World Cup final, Russian president Vladimir Putin told a gathered crowd of reportedly 200,000 (according to Moscow Police) […]
Andrew Sullivan on the post-liberal Right’s Putin problem
Earlier this week at Current I wrote about the conservative nationalists who love Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and (to a lesser extent to be sure) Russian president Vladimir Putin. These critics of American liberalism are in a tough spot these […]
What is happening these days on Russian TV?
A lot of pro-Putin propaganda. Olga Khazan is watching so we don’t have to. Here is a taste of her recent piece at The Atlantic: To get a sense of what Russians are told about the war, I fired up […]
Nikki Haley’s “foolish, self-serving, and pernicious” comments about the Putin invasion of Ukraine
In case you missed it, former South Carolina governor and Trump U.N. Secretary Nikki Haley is tweeting and talking. In this video she seems like she is running for president against Biden: In an interview with Chuck Todd on Meet […]
How the head of the Russian Orthodox Church is spinning Putin’s invasion
Here is Cathy Young at The Bulwark: In the past ten days, plenty of rationalizations have been offered for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine—everything from “Russia needs a buffer state to keep NATO at a distance” (just about every Kremlin […]
Why some on the Christian Right support Russia
Historian Bethany Moreton explains the links between American conservatives (and conservative evangelicals) and Russia. Here is a taste of her piece at The Washington Post: From 1992 to 1997, a consortium of major U.S. evangelical organizations raised $60 million to bring former […]
The Eric Metaxas Show pushes pro-Putin propaganda. His show is little more than an outlet to promote conspiracy theories
In the episode of The Eric Metaxas Show I have posted below: Eric Metaxas criticizes the “Deep State” for not welcoming Russia into the community of nations after the Fall of communism. He implies that the West is to blame […]
Zelensky: “This might be the last time you see me alive”
Here is Barak Ravid at Axios: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told EU leaders “this might be the last time you see me alive” during a video conference on Thursday night, two European sources briefed on the call tell Axios. State […]
The New York Times condemns the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Here is a taste of the editorial: …Vladimir Putin is giving a master class in dangerous and destructive leadership and making it all the more important that President Biden and other nations stand resolutely together in the face of threats, […]
The intellectual roots of Biden’s response to Putin
Here is the team at Politico‘s “West Wing Playbook”: …Biden’s 2017 book, “Promise Me, Dad,” largely focused on his deceased son BEAU. But it still mentioned the Russian president more than 65 times. “While I had been encouraged by Putin’s willingness […]