A free, prosperous, democratic Ukraine is a threat to Putin’s regime

A free, prosperous, democratic Ukraine is a threat to Putin’s regime

Anne Applebaum writes: Children twirled around a skating rink just outside the president’s office in central Kyiv last week, while tourists took pictures of themselves in front of onion-domed, snow-dusted churches. The stores were full of people shopping for the New Year’s holiday and Orthodox Christmas, just as they always are at this time of year. The airports were crowded. In other words, nothing unusual was happening in the Ukrainian capital—nothing except for the contingency plans being made for a…

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U.S. catches Kremlin insider who may have secrets of 2016 hack

U.S. catches Kremlin insider who may have secrets of 2016 hack

Bloomberg reports: In the days before Christmas, U.S. officials in Boston unveiled insider trading charges against a Russian tech tycoon they had been pursuing for months. They accused Vladislav Klyushin, who’d been extradited from Switzerland on Dec. 18, of illegally making tens of millions of dollars trading on hacked corporate-earnings information. Yet as authorities laid out their securities fraud case, a striking portrait of the detainee emerged: Klyushin was not only an accused insider trader, but a Kremlin insider. He…

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How the EU let Hungary become an illiberal model

How the EU let Hungary become an illiberal model

The New York Times reports: After long indulging him, leaders in the European Union now widely consider Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary an existential threat to a bloc that holds itself up as a model of human rights and the rule of law. Mr. Orban has spent the past decade steadily building his “illiberal state,” as he proudly calls Hungary, with the help of lavish E.U. funding. Even as his project widened fissures in the bloc, which Hungary joined…

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Your attention didn’t whither away. It was stolen

Your attention didn’t whither away. It was stolen

Johann Hari writes: I went to Portland, Oregon, to interview Prof Joel Nigg, who is one of the leading experts in the world on children’s attention problems, and he told me we need to ask if we are now developing “an attentional pathogenic culture” – an environment in which sustained and deep focus is harder for all of us. When I asked him what he would do if he was in charge of our culture and he actually wanted to…

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One year after January 6 insurrection, Trumpism isn’t gone. ‘It’s ‘almost a religion’

One year after January 6 insurrection, Trumpism isn’t gone. ‘It’s ‘almost a religion’

Politico reports: Donald Trump has already telegraphed the remarks he plans to give at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, the anniversary of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. If he follows the script laid out in his announcement of the news conference, he will commit a whitewashing of the day, repeating the lie that the 2020 election was rigged and defending his part in fomenting the insurrection — all while a solemn prayer service is held at the Capitol, in a…

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American democracy is cracked, and could collapse

American democracy is cracked, and could collapse

Thomas Homer-Dixon writes: By 2025, American democracy could collapse, causing extreme domestic political instability, including widespread civil violence. By 2030, if not sooner, the country could be governed by a right-wing dictatorship. We mustn’t dismiss these possibilities just because they seem ludicrous or too horrible to imagine. In 2014, the suggestion that Donald Trump would become president would also have struck nearly everyone as absurd. But today we live in a world where the absurd regularly becomes real and the…

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Majority of Americans think January 6 attack threatened democracy

Majority of Americans think January 6 attack threatened democracy

ABC News reports: Nearly a year after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, a strong majority of Americans condemn it and believe former President Donald Trump is at least partially to blame. But partisan splits have hardened over time, with Republicans still largely backing Trump’s version of events, a new ABC/Ipsos poll finds. An overwhelming majority (72%) of Americans believe the people involved in the attack on the Capitol were “threatening democracy,” while 1 in 4 Americans believes…

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In a nation at war with itself, one town in Virginia tries a cup of civility

In a nation at war with itself, one town in Virginia tries a cup of civility

The Associated Press reports: When Maureen Donnelly Morris came from nearby Leesburg to open her café in Lovettsville, she got a warm welcome. Neighbors rallied to her aid. Divisions ripping at their town and their country were set aside. America’s thunderous rage felt distant. They sank posts for her parking signs. They brought solar lights for the cheery space outdoors, sharpened her bagel-slicing blades and contributed plants, all to herald what would become the town’s social hub and civil common…

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Coming soon to this coal county in Kentucky: Solar, in a big way

Coming soon to this coal county in Kentucky: Solar, in a big way

The New York Times reports: For a mountain that’s had its top blown off, the old Martiki coal mine is looking especially winsome these days. With its vast stretches of emerald grass dotted with hay bales and ringed with blue-tinged peaks, and the wild horses and cattle that roam there, it looks less like a shuttered strip mine and more like an ad for organic milk. The mountain is poised for another transformation. Hundreds of acres are set to be…

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The plot against American democracy that isn’t taught in schools

The plot against American democracy that isn’t taught in schools

Jonathan M. Katz writes: Smedley Butler knew a coup when he smelled one. He had been involved in many himself. He had overthrown governments and protected “friendly” client ones around the world on behalf of some of the same U.S. bankers, lawyers, and businessmen apparently now looking for his help. For 33 years and four months Butler had been a United States Marine, a veteran of nearly every overseas conflict back to the war against Spain in 1898. Respected by…

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Lost perspective? Try this linguistic trick to reset your view

Lost perspective? Try this linguistic trick to reset your view

Ariana Orvell writes: In the 2nd century CE, in the sunset of his life, the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius began recording meditations on how he had lived. The questions he asked himself are the same ones many of us find ourselves asking today: how does a person live a meaningful life? How does one find resilience in the face of suffering? What does it mean to be happy? Aurelius did not intend for Meditations to be read by others, allowing…

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Every day is January 6 now

Every day is January 6 now

An editorial in the New York Times says: One year after from the smoke and broken glass, the mock gallows and the very real bloodshed of that awful day, it is tempting to look back and imagine that we can, in fact, simply look back. To imagine that what happened on Jan. 6, 2021 — a deadly riot at the seat of American government, incited by a defeated president amid a last-ditch effort to thwart the transfer of power to…

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Joe Biden’s year of hoping dangerously

Joe Biden’s year of hoping dangerously

Susan B. Glasser writes: The best thing you can say about 2021 is that it will soon be over. A year that started with an insurrection at the Capitol is ending with more than eight hundred thousand Americans dead in the Covid pandemic, as a contagious new variant, Omicron, produces the biggest wave of cases yet. Inflation is the highest it has been in decades. The twenty-year U.S. war in Afghanistan concluded with an embarrassing and botched American retreat. The…

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A year after a seditious insurrection, why won’t federal prosecutors treat it that way?

A year after a seditious insurrection, why won’t federal prosecutors treat it that way?

Kimberly Atkins Stohr writes: The insurrectionists were inside the US Capitol building, waving flags, shouting demands and targeting lawmakers with deadly threats in a politically-motivated revolt. The damage from the siege, which shocked the nation, is still visible in the House chamber. The perpetrators of that attack and their accomplices were charged and convicted of, among other crimes, seditious conspiracy. That federal statute criminalizes plots to overthrow the government or to forcefully “prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any…

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