Russia Looks to Exploit White House ‘Turbulence,’ Analysts Say

MOSCOW — The Kremlin, increasingly convinced that President Trump will not fundamentally change relations with Russia, is instead seeking to bolster its global influence by exploiting what it considers weakness in Washington, according to political advisers, diplomats, journalists and other analysts.

Russia has continued to test the United States on the military front, with fighter jets flying close to an American warship in the Black Sea this month and a Russian naval vessel steaming conspicuously in the Atlantic off the coast of Delaware.

“They think he is unstable, that he can be manipulated, that he is authoritarian and a person without a team,” Alexei A. Venediktov, the editor in chief of Echo of Moscow, a liberal radio station, said of President Trump.

The Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, has long sought to crack the liberal Western order, both as a competitor and as a champion of an alternative, illiberal model. To that end, he did what he could to buttress the electoral chances of Mr. Trump, who seemed like a kindred spirit with his harsh denunciations of NATO and the European Union, his endorsement of the British withdrawal from the European Union and his repeated shrugs over Russia’s destabilizing Ukraine.

In this context, Mr. Trump’s election was an unexpected bonus, but the original giddiness has worn off, and Moscow has returned to its tried-and-true formula of creating turmoil and exploiting the resulting opportunities.

“They are all telling each other that this is great, he created this turbulence inside, as we wanted, and now he is focused on his domestic problems and we have more freedom to maneuver,” Mr. Venediktov said. “Let them deal with their own problems. There, not in Ukraine. There, not in the Middle East. There, not in NATO. This is the state of mind right now.”

Sergei A. Markov, a leading analyst friendly to the Kremlin, made much the same point. “Right now the Kremlin is looking for ways that Russia can use the chaos in Washington to pursue its own interests,” said Mr. Markov, a member of the Civic Chamber, a Kremlin advisory group. “The main hope is that the U.S. will be preoccupied with itself and will stop pressuring Russia.”

Any turbulence that Russia foments also gives the Kremlin leverage that it can try to trade in the global arena at a time when it does not have much that others want.

Mr. Venediktov compared the Russian position to an intrusive neighbor who promises to be helpful by avoiding noisy restoration activity at night even though it breaks the apartment building rules in the first place.

Analysts say the Kremlin is aware that the tactic of creating and exploiting disarray can become self-defeating, in that prolonged instability could allow threats like the extremist group Islamic State to flourish.

“It is important for Russia that America does its job in foreign policy,” said Alexey Chesnakov, a periodic Kremlin political adviser and the director of the Center for Current Politics, a trend analysis group in Moscow. “If there is nobody to do that job, it might not be good for us, either.”

The Middle East provides examples of both vectors, analysts say, a moment of chaos to exploit and concerns about achieving stability for the long-term future.

Moscow has begun courting Libya, where Mr. Putin seems to want to prove that the Obama administration and other Western powers made a mistake by working to force Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi from power in 2011. Russia invited various powerful figures to Moscow and sent the country’s lone aircraft carrier, the somewhat dilapidated Admiral Kuznetsov, on a port call to Libya on its way back from Syria last month. Khalifa Haftar, the military commander in eastern Libya, got a tour. The government invited veteran officials and analysts from around the Arab world this week to discuss the future of Libya and Yemen, among other topics.

Syria, on the other hand, underscores the limits to Russian power. In the two months since Russian-backed government forces took back the city of Aleppo, there has been little movement in forging peace.

Not least, Russia can ill afford the billions of dollars needed to rebuild the country. For that it needs Washington to help persuade its allies like Qatar and Saudi Arabia, who all seek a political transition away from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Like much of the world, nobody in Moscow can figure out who makes Mr. Trump’s foreign policy, never mind what it will be. Since the inauguration, it has become clear that Mr. Trump’s rosy view of Mr. Putin is not shared by the president’s top foreign policy advisers, with the possible exception of Stephen K. Bannon, his chief White House strategist.

We cannot understand how they will work in concert,” said Igor Yurgens, a Russian economist who is prominent in business and development.

The Kremlin has adopted a wait-and-see attitude toward Mr. Trump, analysts said, expecting the first meeting with Mr. Putin in Europe sometime this summer to set the course for relations.

Dmitry K. Kiselyov, the anchor of the main state propaganda program “News of the Week,” recently pronounced what seemed to be the new party line on the air. “Let’s not judge too harshly, things are still unsettled in the White House,” he said. “Still not a word from there. Only little words, and that doesn’t amount to a policy.”

Just how unsettled was underscored on Monday, when the White House announced plans to increase military spending by $54 billion, an amount just about equal to what Russia spends in total on its military annually.

While the appearance of such turmoil in the White House has probably been surprising, even gratifying, to the Kremlin, analysts say Russia’s government is worried about having too much of a good thing. “It would be better for us to have a predictable partner,” Mr. Markov said. “An unpredictable one is dangerous.”

The perception of weakness calls into question here in Moscow whether Mr. Trump can ever live up to the many statements he made during the campaign about forging closer ties with Mr. Putin and Russia. “The overwhelming view of the Kremlin is that Trump is not very strong,” said Valeriy Solovey, a professor at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. “He might have sympathy toward Russia, but he is contained within the political establishment.”

Russia’s far right regularly predicts Mr. Trump’s assassination at the hands of the American establishment, a view occasionally echoed on state television.

Alexander Dugin, a nationalist Russian philosopher, called Mr. Trump’s inauguration the happiest day of his life because it signified the demise of the liberal international order. Mr. Dugin seemed most eager for Mr. Trump to get on with his promise to “drain the swamp” in Washington, although he worried about the consequences. “It can kill,” Mr. Dugin said in an interview. “It is not so easy to drain the swamp.”

Since the inauguration, however, enthusiasm for Mr. Trump in official Russia lurched from cool to uncool seemingly overnight. Dmitri S. Peskov, the presidential spokesman, denied that the new skepticism had been ordered from the top. The speed of the change was striking, however.

Russia’s political class marvels at how much time it now spends chewing over the minutiae of the American political system. Some attribute that to the fact that domestic politics are comatose, with Mr. Putin assured of winning another six-year term in 2018.

“Nobody is talking about the Putin election,” said Mr. Chesnakov, the political consultant. “We are discussing relations between Congress and Trump.”

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Russia Vows to Veto West-sponsored Sanctions Resolution on Syria

United Nations: Russia vowed on Friday to use its veto to block a proposed UN resolution drafted by the United States, France and Britain that would impose sanctions on Syria for the use of chemical weapons.
The trio are pushing for a vote early next week on the measure that would slap sanctions on 11 Syrians and 10 entities linked to chemical attacks in the nearly six-year war.

"I just explained our position very clearly to our partners. If it is tabled, we will veto it," Russian Deputy Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov told reporters following a closed-door meeting of the Security Council.

Safronkov rejected the measure as "one-sided", saying it was based on "insufficient proof" and contradicted "the fundamental principle of presumption of innocence until the investigation is over".

Russia has used its veto six times to shield its Damascus ally from any punitive action by the Security Council. The draft resolution follows a UN-led investigation which concluded in October that the Syrian military had carried out at least three chlorine attacks on opposition-held villages in 2014 and 2015.

The joint panel of the United Nations and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) also found that Islamic State jihadists had used mustard gas in an attack in 2015.

US Ambassador Nikki Haley said she was not swayed by the Russian arguments.

"How much longer is Russia going to continue to babysit and make excuses for the Syrian regime?" she said.

"People have died by being suffocated to death. That's barbaric."

"You are either for chemical weapons or you are against it," she added.

The fresh clash with Russia came as a new round of peace talks in Geneva struggled to get off the ground, with Syrian government and opposition delegations haggling over the format of meetings.

The vote expected Monday or Tuesday would mark the first major council action by the new US administration of President Donald Trump, who took office on January 20 seeking warmer ties with Russia.

Britain and France had circulated the draft text weeks ago, but held off on action to give the Trump administration time to study it.

The vote would see the Trump administration joining old allies France and Britain to confront Russia over its support for Syria.

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Guardiola warns Manchester City of Monaco goal threat

Monaco have been the highest goalscorers across Europe's Big Five leagues this season - reason enough for Manchester City to take them seriously when they visit the Etihad on Tuesday night.

 

Pep Guardiola has told his Manchester City players to remember what happened to Barcelona against Paris Saint-Germain last week as his Manchester City side prepare to face French league leaders Monaco in the Champions League on Tuesday.

The visit of Monaco sees a return to England of Radamel Falcao who endured two miserable spells on loan with Manchester United and then Chelsea, but who has looked back to his best this season.

Guardiola believes the striker, with 21 goals in 27 games, will be a significant threat for a team which has scored more goals than any other in Europe’s Big Five leagues this season.

Falcao, who was a prolific goalscorer for Atletico Madrid when Guardiola was in charge at Barcelona, scored only four goals in 29 appearances during a season-long arrangement for United, and just once during an equally dismal loan spell with Chelsea.

“At Atlético Madrid he did an amazing job,” Guardiola said. “After that, he was injured, unfortunately, and you need time to recover. I don’t know what happened with him here but there can be many reasons sometimes why it goes well or not. That is a question for Radamel Falcao. But the way Monaco play now is perfect for him. They attack inside and cross a lot – and he needs that. That’s why he’s back. I am happy for him, he is a good professional and a nice guy, and back at his level scoring goals.”

Monaco have scored 76 goals in 26 games in Ligue 1, establishing a three-point lead at the top, and Guardiola believes Barcelona’s 4-0 defeat in the first leg in Paris illustrates the threat posed by French sides.
“For me, Barcelona remains the best team in the world,” Guardiola said.

“When that team is at their level, no one can compete – they’re the best – but in 90 minutes anything can happen. In the Champions League, everyone can beat you and say bye-bye.

“The level, and pressure, is so high there has to be 100% focus. I don’t need a result like PSG-Barcelona to realise how good French football is and how physical they are.”

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Wet winter may help Colorado River push off problems, but it will not end the drought

California is not the only place in the West confronting startling amounts of rain and snow.

Drought conditions have declined substantially across the region in recent weeks, with heavy storms replenishing reservoirs and piling fresh powder on ski resorts.

Yet there is one place where the precipitation has been particularly welcome and could be transformative: the Colorado River basin, which provides water to nearly 40 million people across seven states.
“We’re in a really good spot as far as snow accumulations,” said Malcolm Wilson, who leads the Bureau of Reclamation’s water resources group in the upper Colorado River basin.

In fact, if the Rocky Mountains continue to see substantial snowfall this winter, there is a chance that later this year, water managers for the Colorado could do something that seemed inconceivable just a few weeks ago: They could start giving water away.

Under federal guidelines that kick in when water flows reach certain volumes, the Bureau of Reclamation, which oversees the river basin’s largest reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, could release enough water from the former to raise the elevation of the latter by 20 feet or more — providing a remarkable shot in the arm for a lake that has been declining steadily during a devastating drought that started in 2000.

The process — lowering one reservoir to lift another — is called equalization, and a few weeks ago, it was not even viewed as a viable option. Now, Wilson said, “It’s in the realm of possibility.”

Even if that optimistic scenario does not play out — the region would need several more weeks of strong precipitation without a substantial warmup — there is still reason to savor a moment of relief on the Colorado.

“For the last four years, it was all about where can we get extra water. Now, all of a sudden in the last six weeks, it’s a completely different mindset.


As of last month, the bureau was forecasting about a 50% chance that, for the first time, the river and its reservoirs would not be able to fulfill the water demands of states that rely on it, beginning in 2018.
But this week, the bureau quietly updated that forecast, saying the chance was only about 34%. By the end of this year, it expects Lake Mead to be at least 3 feet above the threshold at which an official “shortage” would be declared.

Not only that, the bureau said the likelihood of a shortage through 2021 is no greater than 33%. Just a few weeks ago, the chances of shortages in that time frame were about 60%.
Still, no one is declaring this the end of a drought that has fallowed farm fields, depleted groundwater and even inspired a dystopian novel, “The Water Knife,” from 2015, which imagines the Southwest descending into crime and chaos as people fight over the shrinking Colorado.

While California has been climbing out of its drought — albeit the hard way, with brutal storms, mudslides and a mass evacuation ordered earlier below the damaged Oroville Dam spillway — the drought on the Colorado may never truly end.

That is because no matter how deep the snowpack may get one year — some drainages are seeing close to 200% of normal this year — the river itself functions at what its managers call a “structural deficit.” The amount of water to which cities, tribes, farmers and others have legal rights is larger than the amount that, on average, flows into the system. In addition, climate change models for the future show declining snowpack and rising temperatures, potentially leading to more evaporation.

That all means that delicate negotiations that have been underway to get the seven states which use the water — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — to increase the amount of water they conserve are still crucial.

The effort, called the drought contingency plan, has been going on for several years, though negotiations intensified in 2016. The idea is to add a layer of voluntary conservation measures to prevent Lake Mead from falling below 1,075 feet, the level that triggers more painful, involuntary conservation measures.

Water managers had hoped to reach an agreement by the end of the Obama administration but ran into challenges resolving concerns among agricultural and other interests within individual states, particularly in Arizona and California.

Now, some water managers worry they may face a new challenge: that the wet winter may reduce the sense of urgency to complete the drought contingency plan.

“It potentially makes it harder, to tell you the truth,” said Tom Buschatzke, the head of the Arizona Department of Water Resources, who is trying to build support for the plan among the state’s competing interests, “because sometimes crisis mode drives outcomes.”

Buschatzke noted that 2011 was also a very wet year, with strong snowpack, but less than four years later, water managers were again preparing for the possibility of a shortage. The Colorado provides 41% of Arizona’s water.

“We need to make sure the wet winter doesn’t stop the momentum we’ve built,” he said. “Mother Nature does not bail us out.”

Both the drought and the recent deluges demonstrate how the region’s water issues are connected. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California relies on the Colorado for about 45% of its water on average, but during the drought, the Colorado has provided as much as 90% of the utility’s water.

The recent heavy rain in California has changed the balance again, allowing the utility to leave more water in Lake Mead, which helps the rest of the basin guard against a shortage.

“For the last four years, it was all about where can we get extra water,” said Bill Hasencamp, who manages Colorado River resources for the Metropolitan Water District. “Now, all of a sudden in the last six weeks, it’s a completely different mindset. We’re storing as much water as we can in Lake Mead, storing it in our desert groundwater account, storing it in every reservoir account we have.”

Hasencamp said the improvement in short-term forecasts for the Colorado could make it easier for California to approve the drought contingency plan, in part because the state’s water rights already make it least likely to suffer major cuts.

Besides, he noted, the plan is merely a temporary fix, one that may not have to be implemented if Lake Mead improves for a few years. The truly complex negotiations will begin in 2020 for what is supposed to be a long-term solution.

“Lake Mead is like going to Vegas,” Hasencamp said. “You might win a couple of times. You might even hit a jackpot. But in the end, the odds are stacked against you.”
 

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Mark Zuckerberg urges people to take action against backlash to globalisation

Mark Zuckerberg has warned of a growing backlash against globalisation and urged people to respond by building a “global community” instead of “sitting around being upset”.
The Facebook founder was speaking as he published a 5,800 word essay on the future of social media and the global economy.
In it, he said globalisation was beneficial but risked leaving some people behind.
“Every year, the world got more connected and this was seen as a positive trend. Yet now, across the world there are people left behind by globalisation, and movements for withdrawing from global connection”, he wrote.

“There are questions about whether we can make a global community that works for everyone, and whether the path ahead is to connect more or reverse course.”
In an interview with BBC News to coincide with the essay, which was posted on his Facebook page, Mr Zuckerberg said leaders had failed to foresee the negative consequences of global changes.
"For a couple of decades, maybe longer, people have really sold this idea that as the world comes together everything is going to get better”, he said.

"I think the reality is that over the long term that will be true, and there are pieces of infrastructure that we can build to make sure that a global community works for everyone.
"But I do think there are some ways in which this idea of globalisation didn't take into account some of the challenges it was going to create for people, and now I think some of what you see is a reaction to that.”

The billionaire argued that people should respond to anti-globalisation movements by building “smaller communities” and “intimate social structures” that meet people’s “personal, emotional and spiritual needs”.
He added: "If people are asking the question, is the direction for humanity to come together more or not? I think that answer is clearly yes. But we have to make sure the global community works for everyone. It is not just automatically going to happen.

"If you are upset about the direction things are going in, I hope you don't just sit around and be upset, but you feel urgent about building the long-term infrastructure that needs to get built.”
Mr Zuckerberg has come under pressure in recent months from critics who say Facebook is not doing enough to tackle fake news. Some people have blamed the site for serving as a platform for untrue news stories that many believe helped Donald Trump become US President.

In his essay, however, Mr Zuckerberg said he understood the importance of tackling fake news.
"Accuracy of information is very important," he said. “We know there is misinformation and even outright hoax content on Facebook.

"We've made progress fighting hoaxes the way we fight spam, but we have more work to do.
"In a free society, it's important that people have the power to share their opinion, even if others think they're wrong. Our approach will focus less on banning misinformation, and more on surfacing additional perspectives and information, including that fact checkers dispute an item's accuracy."

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Putin is Again Bombing Ukraine: Will Evangelicals Call on Trump to Take Action?

Ukrainians are again facing aggression from Russia, initiated by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Christian blogger Warren Throckmorton asks whether U.S. evangelicals will step in to help.
In a post titled “Do Evangelical Leaders Still Care about Ukraine?” Throckmorton recalls a short time ago when evangelicals spoke out about Putin’s actions toward Ukraine and called out President Obama for seemingly being unwilling to confront Putin’s aggression toward Russia’s neighbor.
However, now evangelicals seem to be remaining silent while President Trump also allows Putin to bomb Eastern Ukraine.

Trump has been accused for some time of being too friendly with Russia, although he alleges that having a diplomatic relationship with Putin is an asset for the U.S.
Paul Kengor of Grove City College and The Center for Vision & Values notes that “The ‘Putin-likes-me’ attitude of Trump is a fatal conceit, and it’s something that Donald Trump should have learned from watching two terms of Barack Obama’s naïve statements and attitude toward the Russians. It is also the polar opposite of Ronald Reagan’s statements and attitude toward the Russians.”

Throckmorton writes that if evangelical leaders still care about the plight of the Ukrainian people “I hope they will use their clout with Trump in order to educate him about the dangers of trusting the Russian leader, especially given his recent actions. If anything, Trump’s rhetoric is more in lines with a desire to Make Russia Great Again than #MAGA.”

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Jeremiah Wright’s Words Hauntingly Relevant Today

In 2008, the presence of then-Senator Barack Obama in the race for the White House became troubling, it seems, to a nation which had always been wracked and ruled by racism. There seemed to be a growing panic that this African-American might just win the Democratic nomination and worse, the presidency. A move was put in place to try to upend Obama’s campaign by using what strategists was sure would work — racism.

How best to do that than to use a couple of soundbites by Obama’s then-pastor, the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Jr.? The soundbites showing Wright preaching were chosen precisely because his words and his presentation would feed into the fear of black people that racists know well. Surely, the strategists thought, if they could show that Obama was listening to an angry black man who appeared not to buy into the myth of American exceptionalism, the country would be swayed, Obama would lose the election, and things would go back to normal.

The plan did not work, and although Obama distanced himself from Rev. Wright in order to help his chances of winning the election, the fact of the matter is that Wright’s message of the pervasiveness of racism was spot on... and it still is. America’s refusal to deal with its racism is eating away at its very core, but nobody wants to talk about it.

Today, however, we see racism in rare form. The shootings of black people by white officers with no accountability, the massacre of the nine innocent people in Charleston, South Carolina, and the burnings of black churches gives the actions of racism front and center stage once again.

Jeremiah Wright’s ministry was about addressing racism in the context of theological expectations on how to handle it. The power of Wright’s ministry was that he was able to talk and teach about the reality of racial oppression. Black people in America, if the truth be told, really do not want to talk about or hear about racism; the church experience has been, too often, one that celebrates and pushes personal piety in a relationship with Jesus the Christ. Politics and history, and their impact on black people have historically been largely ignored.

In spite of the fact that racism finds its way into every aspect of American life, blacks and whites have been reluctant to talk about it. The sentiment has seemed to be that if America ignores her racist history, that history will dissipate and disappear. So many black families have refused to talk about the painful experiences due to racism their ancestors have endured, and of course, white America has insisted that racism was “back then” and has complained that black people bring it up too often. To talk about or to acknowledge that something happening is due to racism only draws wrath and impatience from white Americans, and many blacks, who charge that any mention of race is playing “the race card.” Nobody wants to be blamed for doing that and too often, remain silent even when the effects of racism are causing horrific emotional pain and societal ruination.

Wright, however, refused to be silent. Before him sat people who constantly lived lives of racial discrimination. They were American veterans who had been deemed good enough to fight for America in her wars, but who were discriminated against and often times lynched when they returned home, still in uniform and were refused loans to buy homes. They were the ones who were passed over for jobs or for promotions on those jobs. They were the ones whose children were stuck in second and third rate public schools, or the ones whose children were being arrested and killed in this nation by those who were supposed to protect them, with scarcely a mention in the news. They were, in effect, suffering because of their race, but were not supposed to admit it or talk about it. They were strangers in a land whose economy they helped build. They were in the Midwest, the north, and west, because they had fled being lynched in the South ...and they were bruised. The only thing they had to hold onto was God.

Wright’s messages made their relationship with God different, stronger, and empowering. He gave the history of what had been happening, related it to the oppression which happened throughout the Bible, and even taught that Jesus himself had been a Palestinian Jew, oppressed as they had been, yet forever faithful to Yahweh. Wright had to preach a message that helped African-Americans keep their heads above and out of the putrid waters of racism, so that they could keep on pushing through the oppression to freedom, dignity, and some semblance of success. 

He was angry, as are most African-Americans and others who read about and study what racism has done in this nation. It is a righteous anger, a righteous indignation, no less justified than the anger of Jewish people who were brutalized by Nazism. Any people, or group of people, who are marginalized by their government are angry; the earliest Americans were angry at the British. The anger of African-Americans, however, has been consistently criticized as being unfounded. That being the case, many African-Americans have tried to hide that anger, but that effort has not erased the ugliness of the experiences they have endured.. 

The brilliance of Wright’s ministry was that he addressed that anger. He put it in historical, sociological and theological context, and in so doing, freed African Americans to acknowledge the anger and move past it. Wright’s ministry was (and is) one which empowers a people who have endured much and who have kept on beating against the gates of oppression. Wright did not preach hatred. He preached liberation and empowerment. Black people were strangers in a land they helped build; the oppressors required of them a song, and they wondered how they could sing the Lord’s song ..regardless. Wright’ message was that one responds to oppression by following the Gospel — to love one another, to forgive one another, and above all, to love and trust God above all else, in spite of the oppression. Being oppressed did not give anyone a ticket to hate; being a Christian demanded that even and perhaps most especially, the oppressed were to show that God is real and that the Gospel, observed and practiced, is the only effective way to fight racism.

Nobody asks the Jewish people to forget the Holocaust. Wright’s ministry reminds us that nobody should ask African Americans to forget what racism has done to them in this land. As Obama’s presidency draws to its end, Wright’s words are still reaching those who are smarting under white supremacy, giving people the strength to fight against the ostensible and less ostensible evidence of racial oppression. In the end, Wright would say, it is only God who can beat the forces of racism; his job, it seems, has been to elucidate and expose racism and get people to stop hiding behind a message of personal piety. He has been and is effective in getting the oppressed to realize that their misery is not imagined or invalid, and in so doing, he has made The Good News “good” to and for those whom American society has marginalized and oppressed for far too long.

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Indiana hate crime bill advances in Legislature

For the second year in a row, Indiana lawmakers are pushing a measure targeting hate crimes in a state that is one of five nationwide with no hate-crime related laws on the books.
Similar to last year, the measure would not create a new hate or bias crime in state statute, but it would let judges consider imposing tougher sentences on crimes motivated by things like a victim's perceived or actual race, religion, disability, gender identity or sexual orientation.
The bill's author, Republican Sen. Susan Glick, said she thinks there is more solid bipartisan support for this year's proposal, but it would have to overcome opposition from at least two influential social conservative advocacy groups.
The American Family Association of Indiana suggests the measure could be a step toward allowing the government to punish people for their beliefs, while the Indiana Family Institute is concerned it would create "favored" classes that leave some out and lead to unequal punishments for the same crime.
If lawmakers feel current punishments aren't adequate, a more fair solution would be to raise the minimums on those crimes evenly, said Ryan McCann of the Indiana Family Institute. That way, he said, specific classes of people aren't singled out for "extra special attention" in the law.
"We support equal justice for all Hoosiers and that's why we oppose the bill," McCann said. "We can't accept equal justice for some and not all."
Bill advocates, meanwhile, argue that though the crime may be the same, the larger impact and intent behind the crime warrant a judge's consideration. Hate crimes are meant to instill fear in entire communities, they say.
Representatives from groups advocating for Jewish, Muslim, black and intellectually disabled communities voiced their support for the measure to the committee. So did law enforcement groups and prosecuting attorneys organizations.
Glick, who also submitted last year's bill, doesn't see this year's measure as quelling free speech because it would only apply to those who act on their beliefs in a criminal way.
"What we're saying is your opinions are yours, you have that right. What you don't have is the right to take that out on other people because you don't agree with their religion or you don't agree with their ethnic origin," she said.
The measure was approved 6-3 Tuesday with an amendment that would also extend protections to off-duty law enforcement officers who are targeted because of their jobs.
Though Glick's proposal died in the House last year without a hearing after clearing the Senate, she said she hopes this year's attempt is more successful.
"For the individuals that are targeted, it is so horrendous and has such a long-lasting effect," she said. "I just think it's important that we as a state, we as a citizenry, address their fears and eliminate them if we can do that."

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Why Trump's Staff Is Lying

One of the most striking features of the early Trump administration has been its political uses of lying. The big weekend story was the obviously false claim of Donald Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, that Trump pulled in the largest inauguration crowds in American history. This raises the question of why a leader might find it advantageous to promote such lies from his subordinates.

First and most obviously, the leader wishes to mislead the public, and wants to have subordinates doing so, in part because many citizens won’t pursue fact-checking. But that’s the obvious explanation, and the truth runs much deeper.

By requiring subordinates to speak untruths, a leader can undercut their independent standing, including their standing with the public, with the media and with other members of the administration. That makes those individuals grow more dependent on the leader and less likely to mount independent rebellions against the structure of command. Promoting such chains of lies is a classic tactic when a leader distrusts his subordinates and expects to continue to distrust them in the future.

Another reason for promoting lying is what economists sometimes call loyalty filters. If you want to ascertain if someone is truly loyal to you, ask them to do something outrageous or stupid. If they balk, then you know right away they aren’t fully with you. That too is a sign of incipient mistrust within the ruling clique, and it is part of the same worldview that leads Trump to rely so heavily on family members.

In this view, loyalty tests are especially frequent for new hires and at the beginning of new regimes, when the least is known about the propensities of subordinates. You don’t have to view President Trump as necessarily making a lot of complicated calculations, rather he may simply be replicating tactics that he found useful in his earlier business and media careers.

Trump’s supporters are indeed correct to point out that previous administrations also told many lies, albeit of a different sort. Imagine, for instance, that mistruths come in different forms: higher-status mistruths and lower-status mistruths. The high-status mistruths are like those we associate with ambassadors and diplomats. The ambassador is reluctant to tell a refutable, flat-out lie of the sort that could cause embarrassment, but if all you ever heard were the proclamations of the ambassador, you wouldn’t have a good grasp of the realities of the situation. Ambassadors typically are speaking to more than one audience at once, a lot of context is required to glean the actual meaning, and if they are interpreted in a strictly literal manner (a mistake) it is easy enough to find lots of misdirection in their words. Most of all, ambassadors just won’t voice a lot of sensitive truths.

Arguably those diplomatic proclamations are not lies, but they do bear quite an indirect relationship to the blunt, bare truth. Ambassadors and diplomats behave this way because they seek maximum flexibility in maintaining delicate coalitions of support over the longer run. And indeed it is correct to think of every incoming (and ongoing) administration of doing lots of “lying” -- if that is the right word -- of this sort.

These higher-status lies are not Trump’s style, and thus many of his supporters, with some justification, see him as a man willing to voice important truths. If Trump’s opponents don’t understand that reality, and the sociological differences between various kinds of misdirection, they are going to underestimate his appeal and self-righteously underestimate how much they are themselves mistrusted by the public.

Trump specializes in lower-status lies, typically more of the bald-faced sort, namely stating “x” when obviously “not x” is the case. They are proclamations of power, and signals that the opinions of mainstream media and political opponents will be disregarded. The lie needs to be understood as more than just the lie. For one thing, a lot of Americans, especially many Trump supporters, are more comfortable with that style than with the “fancier” lies they believe they are hearing from the establishment. For another, joining the Trump coalition has been made costlier for marginal outsiders and ignoring the Trump coalition is now less likely for committed opponents. In other words, the Trump administration is itself sending loyalty signals to its supporters by burning its bridges with other groups.

These lower-status lies are also a short-run strategy. They represent a belief that a lot can be pushed through fairly quickly, bundled with some obfuscation of the truth, and that long-term credibility does not need to be maintained. Once we get past blaming Trump for various misdeeds, it’s worth taking a moment to admit we should be scared he might be right about that.

So the overall picture is this: The Trump administration trusts neither its own appointees nor its own supporters, and is creating a situation where that lack of trust is reciprocal. That is of all things a strategy for getting things done, and these first one hundred days are going to be a doozy.

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