Russia
May 10, 2013 — Scott Johnson
You may have read in the news that John Yoo has suffered the indignity of being banned from Russia by the government of Vladimir Putin. Yoo and 17 others were banned in a tit for tat response a day after the United States imposed sanctions on Russians guilty of human rights violations. Yoo was in good company, included in a group of four men who Russia’s Foreign Ministry said were
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April 8, 2013 — John Hinderaker
Femen is a feminist group that began in Ukraine but seems to have spread to other European countries. It is known for staging topless protests, and is distinguished from some others of this ilk by the fact that many of its members are quite fetching. Topless protests are an easy way to garner publicity–hey, I’m writing about one–but their actual effectiveness is doubtful. Today, Femen staged a topless protest against
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February 23, 2013 — Scott Johnson
I’m at the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s West Coast Retreat. The historian Ronald Radosh — one of my favorites — spoke on a great panel on the culture this afternoon along with Andrew Klavan and Ben Shapiro. After the panel, I caught up with Ron to ask him a few questions on matters of interest to me. I’ve been wrestling with the interaction between iMovie and YouTube to get the
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December 30, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Vladimir Bukovsky is the incredibly brave Soviet dissident who spent 12 years in prison and political psychiatric hospitals before his expulsion from the Soviet Union in 1976. His memoir — To Build a Castle — one of the great documents of the era (and now out of print). Today Bukovsky turns 70. Michael Ledeen celebrates the occasion with this arresting observation: We’ve been friends for a long time, ever since
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December 28, 2012 — Scott Johnson
Today Vladimir Putin signed the new Russian law that will prevent Americans from adopting Russian children. Taking effect January 1, it halts adoptions in process as well as adoptions whose completion is imminent. The New York Daily News reports that Russia has 740,000 children not in parental custody with 18,000 Russians standing in line to adopt children. The law is aimed at Americans and suffused with anti-American animus as well
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June 19, 2012 — Paul Mirengoff
It’s clear to me, and I have it on good authority, that Russia’s leaders sized up President Obama very early on as a lightweight. How else would you expect hardened autocrats and former KGB types to view a president so simultaneously naïve and arrogant as to believe he could conduct a successful “charm offensive” on them. How else would you expect them to view a president who came to Russia
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