The Atlantic: God’s Plan for Mike Pence

Because God works in mysterious ways (or, at the very least, has a postmodern sense of humor), it was Donald J. Trump—gracer of Playboy covers, delighter of shock jocks, collector of mistresses—who descended from the mountaintop in the summer of 2016, GOP presidential nomination in hand, offering salvation to both Pence and the religious right. The question of whether they should wed themselves to such a man was not without its theological considerations. But after eight years of Barack Obama and a string of disorienting political defeats, conservative Christians were in retreat and out of options. So they placed their faith in Trump—and then, incredibly, he won. [...]

Pence has so far showed absolute deference to the president—and as a result he has become one of the most influential figures in the White House, with a broad portfolio of responsibilities and an unprecedented level of autonomy. But for all his aw-shucks modesty, Pence is a man who believes heaven and Earth have conspired to place him a heartbeat—or an impeachment vote—away from the presidency. At some crucial juncture in the not-too-distant future, that could make him a threat to Trump. [...]

Decades later, when Murphy read about Pence vying for a spot on the presidential ticket with Donald Trump, he recognized a familiar quality in his old friend. “Somewhere in the midst of all that genuine humility and good feeling, this is a guy who’s got that ambition,” Murphy told me. And he wondered, “Is Mike’s religiosity a way of justifying that ambition to himself?” [...]

Even some of Trump’s most devoted loyalists marveled at what Pence was willing to say. There was no talking point too preposterous, no fixed reality too plain to deny—if they needed Pence to defend the boss, he was in. When, during the vice-presidential debate, in early October, he was confronted with a barrage of damning quotes and questionable positions held by his running mate, Pence responded with unnerving message discipline, dismissing documented facts as “nonsense” and smears. [...]

Another close friend of Pence’s explained it to me this way: “His faith teaches that you’re under authority at all times. Christ is under God’s authority, man is under Christ’s authority, children are under the parents’ authority, employees are under the employer’s authority.”

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FiveThirtyEight: The Christian Right Has A New Strategy On Gay Marriage

The case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, represents a pivotal new legal strategy for the Christian conservative movement grounded in religious liberty claims rather than arguments that the law should reflect their values. But it’s also a sign that the Christian right — which once professed to speak for America’s “moral majority” — is tacitly conceding a loss in its long-standing battle over gay rights. While religious conservatives have consistently cast themselves as at odds with dominant liberal, secular forces, this case indicates that they are beginning to adapt to life as a true cultural minority.

“Christian conservatives used to try to promote traditional morality for everyone, but now there seems to be a recognition that they just aren’t going to win over the culture,” said Andrew R. Lewis, a political science professor at the University of Cincinnati. “So they’re going to the courts to argue that they’re vulnerable like other minorities and they need protections from the broader culture.”[...]

Phillips’ lawyers aren’t the only ones making this case. The issue of “religious liberty” has become an increasingly high priority for the broader conservative Christian population, particularly white evangelical Protestants, who are overwhelmingly politically conservative and traditionally seen as the core of the Christian right. Surveys by the Barna Group, a research organization that focuses on Christian trends, found that the number of evangelicals (white and nonwhite) who said that religious freedom in the U.S. has become restricted over the past decade rose from 60 percent in 2012 to 77 percent in 2015. Similarly, according to the Pew Research Center, while only 18 percent of white evangelical Protestant churchgoers reported that they had heard about attacks on religious liberty from the pulpit in recent months in 2012, a survey from 2016 found that 43 percent of white evangelicals said they had recently heard clergy speak in defense of religious liberty. [...]

It turns out that both may be true. Barna’s polling shows that evangelicals are increasingly concerned about protecting their own values and way of life, even at the expense of others’: The number of evangelicals who agree that traditional Judeo-Christian values must be given preference in the U.S. rose from 54 percent in 2012 to 76 percent in 2015, while the number of evangelicals who agree that no one set of values should dominate the country declined from 37 percent to 25 percent over the same period.

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The Washington Post: Yes, the Kremlin is worried — about Russia’s own presidential elections

Putin’s regime represents what Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way term “competitive authoritarianism.” Elections in hybrid systems like Russia are not designed to determine who rules, but rather to signal the regime’s power and resilience to potential challengers. [...]

In his book “Patronal Politics,” Henry Hale points out that authoritarian regimes deploy every available resource to dominate elections, even when opposition candidates would not win a free and fair contest. Competitive, if unfair, elections send a potent message about the power of incumbent regimes. [...]

The “great power of expectations,” as Hale labels this phenomenon, drives Russian politics — and the Putin regime has set a high bar for itself. Last year, the Kremlin’s top political technologists established a “70 at 70” objective for Putin’s reelection in March 2018 — 70 percent of the vote with 70 percent turnout. In a recent interview, Russian political expert Tatyana Stanovaya remarked, “Putin just needs to be elected quietly and quickly, without fuss, with good turnout, and a good result.” [...]

A Reuters report, meanwhile, suggests the Kremlin ordered major energy and utility companies to supply the Presidential Administration with news items that cast Russia’s leadership in a positive light. A memo to industry leaders requested stories “where it’s possible to say that state support helped lift the economy out of crisis” and benefited local residents. State-run media outlets are supposed to disseminate the stories to the public. [...]

According to a Levada Center poll from late November, 67 percent of likely voters would vote for Putin, with anticipated turnout between 53 and 55 percent — not the 70 percent figure the Kremlin hopes to see. Trailing far behind are the nationalist firebrand Vladimir Zhirinovsky and the Russian Communist Party’s Gennady Zyuganov, each with just four percent.

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The New York Review of Books: Theresa May’s Blue Monday

Yet she found herself entirely outmaneuvered. The British had assumed that the Irish could be relied on to agree that “sufficient progress” had been made even when there was nothing on the table but bland assurances of “no return to the borders of the past.” This was a serious miscalculation, though an understandable one. Britain has always had the upper hand in its relations with Ireland. It was completely unprepared for the reality that Brexit is creating: a rapid waning of British diplomatic power. The Irish government knew that it had all of the other twenty-six EU member states, and the European Parliament, on its side. Since the negotiation process got under way in April, the Europeans have made it clear that their position is Ireland’s position. Britain is isolated; Ireland has powerful allies.

The reasons for this European solidarity with Ireland are a mixture of idealism and realpolitik. On the one hand, the EU genuinely wants to protect the Belfast Agreement and the Irish peace process. For all its problems, that process is a great reminder of the EU’s own primary purpose, which is to end the threat of war in Europe. On the other hand, siding so strongly with Ireland is a very effective way of admonishing the British about what they are abandoning with Brexit—the protection and support of a large multinational institution. There is a simple message: Ireland is one of us and Britain is not. We look after our own.

Britain’s agreement to accept Ireland’s demands is an expression of its weakness: it can’t even bully little Ireland anymore. And this would have been bad enough for one day. But there was another humiliation in store. Having backed down, May was then peremptorily informed that she was not even allowed to back down. She left her lunch with the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, to take a phone call from the DUP’s Arlene Foster, who told her that the deal she had just made was unacceptable. May then had to go back in and tell Juncker that she could not agree to what she had just agreed to. It is a scarcely credible position for a once great state to find itself in: its leader does not even have the power to conduct a dignified retreat.

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Vox: Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, explained

And although Trump declared Jerusalem to be Israel’s capital, he explicitly didn’t call it the undivided capital of Israel, leaving the door open for Israelis and Palestinians to divide the city during any final status negotiations between the two sides. In advance of the speech, White House officials repeatedly stressed that Trump’s announcement doesn’t represent a change US policy on the future borders of Jerusalem. [...]

World leaders from France to Saudi Arabia to China had cautioned Trump against the decision. Pope Francis even weighed in, calling on world leaders to let “wisdom and prudence prevail” so as “to avoid adding new elements of tension.” The US Consulate in Jerusalem issued a security warning barring all US government employees and their families from traveling to Jerusalem’s Old City or the West Bank ahead of the announcement because “widespread demonstrations” were expected. [...]

In the meantime, Jerusalem has retained the uniquely strange status of a city without a country. Americans born in the city must put “Jerusalem” rather than “Israel” on their passports. That’s because the nationality of the entire city remains contested, which is a source of deep fury for many Israelis and American Jews.

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The Guardian: No more 'my dog ate it' excuses. Where are the Brexit impact reports?

So, had the government undertaken any impact assessments? No. Why should they? Davis pouted. Benn took a deep breath, trying to contain his irritation. Because everyone in government had kept saying they had. Including Davis, who had claimed they existed in excruciating detail. [...]

Would he like to explain why the government hadn’t done any contingency planning when it had originally intended to get to the second phase of the Brexit talks back in October? Davis wouldn’t. Though he could probably hazard a guess that he hadn’t bothered because he had never imagined the talks progressing before the new year anyway. Slow and unsteady wins the race. [...]

Long before the end, Davis got visibly twitchy, frequently reminding everyone he had another appointment, despite having been told to prioritise the committee. Benn asked one last question. Had the government done any planning before deciding to leave the customs union? “Oh no,” he said breezily. Don’t be silly. Brexit was no biggie. Was that all? Right, he’d be off then. Some might have called it a dereliction of duty. If there had been any sense of duty to start with.

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Deutsche Welle: UNHCR: Widespread rape of Syrian boys and men

The study was based on information mainly gathered in late 2016 and provided by several dozen informants and through discussions with around 196 refugees in Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. It found that sexual violence towards boys and men is much more common than had been believed. The report found that children and elderly men were also victims, but that gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex individuals were particularly vulnerable.

Victims have accused armed groups within Syria of carrying out mass rapes, with sexual violence often occurring in detention or prison facilities. One focus group of refugee women in Jordan estimated that between 30-40 percent of the adult men in their community were victims of sexual violence while in detention in Syria. A Syrian refugee called Sami, told UNHCR, "A man would never speak of this. Why should he? We know that everyone in jail is raped — it is normal." [...]

However, outside Syria, there is a danger of opportunistic abuse in refugee camps or through informal employment opportunities in countries of refuge. The report noted that there is concern that the high rate of child labor among Syrian refugee boys, which, for example, is 94 percent in Jordan, leads to sexual exploitation and rape. Refugee boys and men have reported that some employers refuse to pay wages until sexual acts are performed.

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Bloomberg: Putin Wants to Win, But Not at All Costs

This week, the daily newspaper Vedomosti discovered the casualties figures on the Russian government procurement website. In October, Sogaz, an insurance company owned by a group of investors close to Putin, won the tender to insure Russian military personnel against death and injury. Everyone in active service -- conscripts, professional contract soldiers, officers -- is insured. In 2016, that meant 1,191,095 people.  

Along with the requirements and probability tables, the Defense Ministry, which organized the tender published the number of insurance claims made in 2012 through 2016. Of these claims, 3,198 were related to deaths. The deaths didn't necessarily occur the same year as the claims were made, but the count should be close enough to the actual number of casualties. [...]

When Putin came to Assad's rescue, many Russians -- including some Putin supporters -- feared he might get bogged down there, as the Soviets did in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The Soviet Union lost more than 15,000 people in the 10-year war -- enough for the deaths to register on most Russians' radars. Nobel prizewinner Svetlana Aleksievich described the grief and the anger in her 1989 novel, Zinc Boys. In terms of military casualties, however, Putin's Syrian campaign has cost his regime remarkably little, and now that the fighting is almost over, any damage to his domestic standing is highly unlikely. [...]

As Putin increased and rearmed the Russian military, he has also embraced the concept of hybrid war, shifting much of the burden onto the shoulders of irregulars. In part thanks to that shift, Russia's military losses in 2014, the worst of the last five years, only reached 68.8 per 100,000 -- significantly less than the 88.1 service members per 100,000 the U.S. lost in 2010, the last year for which data are publicly available from the Defense Casualty Analysis System. 

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Jakub Marian: Wealth per adult by country in Europe

Credit Suisse recently published its annual wealth report (data tables here) comparing the wealth (net worth) of adults (as private individuals, i.e. not the wealth of the whole country divided by its population) in different countries.

Credit Suisse defines wealth = financial assets (e.g. bank deposits) + non-financial assets (e.g. real estate) – debt (if assets are less than debt, wealth can be negative). The map below shows estimates of the median wealth per adult by country, which is the middle value (50% own more, 50% own less):[...]

How do other major economies fare? The medians are (in 1000 USD): Japan 124, United States 56, China 6.7, Brazil 4.6, India 1.3.

It should be noted that wealth not synonymous with standard of living, which is better characterized by indicators such as purchasing power index and disposable income (because the cost of living and spending patterns differ from country to country).

see the map