Russian money has been finding its way into American elections. It’s a growing threat to U.S. national security and to the integrity of our election system. In ironic contrast to the GOP’s baseless claims of fraudulent Democratic voting, this flow of Russian money especially implicates the Republican Party.

For example:

salon.com

Biden's documents: Democrats, media fall into GOP trap one more time

Some years ago, my mother went shopping at a department store in the local mall. After she had left the store and was walking around the mall, she noticed that people were pointing and laughing at her. What had she done to become an object of scorn and mockery? Did she have toilet paper on her shoe? Was her hair unkempt, or her clothing disarranged? Did she have something on her face?

Some years ago, my mother went shopping at a department store in the local mall. After she had left the store and was walking around the mall, she noticed that people were pointing and laughing at her. What had she done to become an object of scorn and mockery? Did she have toilet paper on her shoe? Was her hair unkempt, or her clothing disarranged? Did she have something on her face?

This article first appeared in Salon.

There was a time in American life when it was considered bad manners to talk about politics or religion at the dinner table. There were good reasons for that — those subjects tend to get people upset and angry and that's always rough on digestion. But I doubt it was ever something that was practiced much because when people aren't gossiping or talking about work, politics and religion are the most likely topics whether we like it or not. Still, I don't think the merging of religion into partisan politics has ever been quite as thorough as it's been in the past 40 years or so. Sure you can go back in history and see many examples of religious leaders being politically influential from Cotton Mather to Brigham Young to Martin Luther King Jr. And various religious movements have been deeply involved in social reforms forever. But the emergence of the Christian Right under the auspices of organizations like the Moral Majority led by the Reverend Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition was explicitly formed as a faction of the Republican Party for the purpose of electing officials who would carry out their political agenda. That was unusual and it has been wildly successful.

Ironically, the first evangelical president was a Democrat. Jimmy Carter wore his religion on his sleeve – not that it did him any good with the burgeoning conservative evangelical political movement. In 1980, when Carter ran for re-election, two-thirds of white evangelicals voted for the twice-married, un-churched, matinee idol, Ronald Reagan. It was clear even then that the Christian Right was very serious about enshrining their socially conservative beliefs into law and they weren't picky about how they got it done. Until then religion had operated more or less outside the ugly sausage-making of politics and government, then the Christian Right dove in head first. That movement became one of the most, if not the most, dominant political movements of our time. It completely co-opted the GOP, forcing their agenda as a requirement for office and ensuring that their demands cannot be ignored. In a few decades, they managed to get a religious right majority seated on the Supreme Court and even have an active lobbying effort to sway the justices.

News coverage of failed GOP candidate Solomon Peña's arrest for allegedly orchestrating a plot to shoot up the homes of various elected Democrats has consistently highlighted one key detail: His claims to be the "real" winner of the race for New Mexico House District 14 are so ridiculous that it's hard not to laugh. Ever since Donald Trump's Big Lie about the 2020 election, there's been an assumption that election denialists would at least try to make their claims a little plausible by only crying "fraud" in relatively close elections. Failed Republican Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, for instance, continues to proclaim herself the "real" winner of an election she lost last cycle by less than a percentage point. Peña, on the other hand, lost his bid for the New Mexico House of Representatives in the deep blue city of Albuquerque to Democrat Miguel Garcia by over 47 percentage points, garnering only 26.4% of the vote.

This article first appeared in Salon.

Roughly a third of the way into the annual State of the State address delivered by Gov. Jared Polis on Tuesday before the Colorado General Assembly, he said, referring to the state’s housing crisis, “We need more flexible zoning.”

And with those words, along with the larger position Polis staked out on housing, he put the state’s NIMBYs on notice: the status quo just won’t do.

The Republican coup plot was also reliant on state-level operatives who sought to sabotage American democracy, overturn the results of the 2020 election and return the Trump regime to the White House through a combination of false claims, threats of violence, voter nullification and a calculated attack on the weak spots in America's electoral mechanisms.

Donald Trump was personally at the center of this coup conspiracy. He was not a hapless bystander or useful idiot simply swept up in the catastrophic events of that day.

The House Oversight and Accountability Committee is the major investigative unit in the House. Yesterday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy loaded it with people who enabled Donald Trump’s attempted coup in the months after the 2020 election. They have also called for violence against their political enemies, embraced conspiracy theories, and associated with white supremacists.

McCarthy’s move is the most cynical act of political thuggery since Trump left the White House. Not coincidentally, it is designed to advance Trump’s re-election and his anti-democracy agenda.

Tarrio and four other Proud Boys are currently standing trial for attempting to overthrow the government. Most media coverage of their attorneys has been of a "get a load of these toolbags" variety. Joe Biggs, the Proud Boy whose pre-Jan. 6 activities included "jokingly" advocating using roofies to rape women, had a particularly high-drama defense team. One of his lawyers had his law license suspended right before trial, thanks to misconduct in defending another insurrection sympathizer, Alex Jones of Infowars. Another got into an ugly shouting match with the judge. Another lawyer for a different defendant, Zachary Rehl, has been late to court so often that she got scolded by the judge.

So maybe it's surprising that any defense attorneys for the Proud Boys have said anything coherent, let alone incisive. Yet right there in the opening arguments, Sabino Jauregui, who is defending Tarrio, went straight at the prosecution's weak spot: The government is putting the insurrection's foot soldiers on trial, while leaving the man who led and directed them, Donald Trump, not just untouched by the law but running for president again. (Supposedly.)

We barely had time to catch our breath from the wild spectacle of the Republicans finally electing a speaker when their next spectacle started with a bang. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen abruptly announced that the U.S. will hit the so-called debt ceiling on Jan 19, putting the issue immediately on the front burner. The government can move money around to keep paying its bills until some time next summer, but this is already shaping up to be an exhausting, months-long battle royale. It's probably a good thing that they're getting an early start since the MAGA House majority seems to need some serious remedial instruction on how the world works.

That's not to say that debt-ceiling standoffs are some core tactic of the MAGA movement. In fact, Republicans raised the debt ceiling three times during the Trump administration with no fuss at all. They never felt it necessary to try to persuadeTrump to cut spending, and the Freedom Caucus didn't utter a peep as he massively increased the deficit. These hostage situations are reserved for times when the GOP holds the House and a Democrat is in the White House. Shocking, I know.

Vastly outnumbered, lacking reinforcements, failed by their leaders and with limited resources overall, the Capitol Police and other law enforcement officers bravely fought back against Trump's mob. Beyond the physical stress and violence, Black and brown officers were also assaulted by Trump's followers with racial slurs and symbols and acts of white supremacist hatred.

After hours of hand-to-hand medieval style combat that one police officer said was more intense than what he experienced in Iraq, Trump's attack force overran the defenders and rampaged throughout the Capitol, eager to hunt, kidnap and kill Vice President Mike Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats and Republicans alike who refused to participate in Trump's coup plot.