News bits: Schiff shafts Durham with truth; House Republicans attack enemies; Etc.

From the Republicans tried but failed to smear files: GOP propaganda and rhetoric is loaded with lies, smears and slanders aimed mostly at Democrats, liberals, and RINO Republicans. It turns out that most of the time when the matter is pressed, the evidence shows the propaganda and rhetoric to be actual lies, smears and/or slanders. The Daily Beast writes about a really big Republican lie that ran into a buzzsaw of inconvenient truth with no place to hide from it, despite trying to hide and deflect from it:  

Adam Schiff Gets John Durham to Admit Russia Helped Trump

When Republicans brought Special Counsel John Durham to the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, they thought it’d be an opportunity to score points on Democrats—particularly Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who spent years hyping up Donald Trump’s connections to Russia.

What they got instead was a viral moment when Schiff got Durham—the man tasked with concluding whether the FBI’s investigation of Russia’s connections to the 2016 Trump campaign was appropriate—took Durham to task.

Schiff, a former impeachment manager against Trump, questioned Durham about whether President Trump flaunted information that was released by Russian hackers during the 2016 election. Durham repeatedly insisted he had no knowledge of the matter [what a whopper of a lie]. But in the midst of the exchange, Durham clearly stated he doesn’t doubt the validity of evidence showing Russia was trying to help Trump—something many Republicans have vehemently denied.

“I don’t think there’s any question that Russians intruded into—hacked into the systems, they released information,” Durham said.

“And that was helpful to the Trump campaign, right?” Schiff asked.

After trying to deflect the question, Durham agreed the Russians had been helpful to the Trump campaign.

“And Trump made use of that, as I said, didn’t he, by touting those stolen documents on the campaign trail over a hundred times,” Schiff said.

Durham said he didn’t “really read the newspapers, or listen to the news.”

“So I don’t know that,” he said. 

“Were you totally oblivious to Donald Trump’s use of the stolen emails on the campaign trail more than a hundred times?” Schiff asked. “Did that escape your attention?” 

Durham responded that he wasn’t aware of that.

There is no basis in existing evidence to accord Durham any credibility. He doesn't read newspapers? What does read or listen to, Evie Magazine? Breitbart? Faux News? Nothing? Durham, like the rest of the radical right Republican elites, is a shameless liar. They all tell lots of whopper lies and slanders and get away with it.

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The NYT writes about House Republicans openly attacking enemies: 

House Censures Adam Schiff Over His Role Investigating Trump

The G.O.P.-led House formally censured Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, on Wednesday over his role investigating former President Donald J. Trump, the first in what could be a series of votes seeking to punish those whom Republicans have deemed the party’s enemies.

The censure passed by a party-line vote of 213 to 209 with six Republicans voting “present.” The measure had the backing of Speaker Kevin McCarthy after its lead sponsor, Representative Anna Paulina Luna, Republican of Florida, altered its language to remove a multimillion-dollar fine some Republicans viewed as unconstitutional.

“Adam Schiff launched an all-out political campaign built on baseless distortions against a sitting U.S. president,” Ms. Luna said. The censure accused him of engaging in “falsehoods, misrepresentations and abuses of sensitive information” as he sought to unearth connections between Mr. Trump and Russia.

As usual, the Republicans use lies and slanders to attack enemies. That's all they've got, so that's what they use.

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About the morality of democracy vs authoritarianism: Few or no dictators like to be called dictators. They prefer other labels, often some form of democrat. A day or two ago, president Biden called China's powerful dictator Xi Jinping a dictator. CNN reported on the dictator's instant backlash:

When President Joe Biden referred to his Chinese counterpart as a dictator late Tuesday in California, the response from Beijing was swift and angry.

“The remarks seriously contradict basic facts, seriously violate diplomatic etiquette, and seriously infringe on China’s political dignity,” the spokesperson for the foreign ministry said.

I take that as more evidence that living under democracy is inherently more desirable to most people than the idea of living under authoritarians like dictators, theocrat or plutocrats. Authoritarians know this, so they deny, downplay or deflect from the fact that they are authoritarian. What was most important was that Xi's political dignity was infringed, not necessarily China's.

Setting aside the wisdom or stupidity of Biden's remark, plenty of evidence indicates that the human urge to live under democracy is widespread and universal or almost so. I take that as convincing evidence that at least in modern times, democracy is inherently more moral than various forms of dictatorship. It may not mean that democracies are always better in one or more ways than a comparable dictatorship, but that is a different issue. 

Belief in the superior morality of democracy over authoritarianism or dictatorship is a core moral belief that underpins my own political ideology, pragmatic rationalism. 

Qs: What is an argument(s) that supports some form(s) of authoritarianism as being more moral than some form of democracy? Or, is authoritarianism vs. democracy simply not a matter of ethics or morality?

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Thoughts on democracy in India: A NYT opinion piece by Harvard history professor Maya Jasanoff opines:

Narendra Modi Is Not Who America Thinks He Is

On Thursday the White House will roll out the red carpet for Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India to “affirm the deep and close partnership between the United States and India” and “strengthen our two countries’ shared commitment to a free, open, prosperous, and secure Indo-Pacific.” A state dinner and Mr. Modi’s address to a joint session of Congress will crown months of fawning assessments of India by everyone from Bill Gates to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

Here is what Americans need to know about Mr. Modi’s India. Armed with a sharp-edged doctrine of Hindu nationalism, Mr. Modi has presided over the nation’s broadest assault on democracy, civil society and minority rights in at least 40 years. He has delivered prosperity and national pride to some, and authoritarianism and repression of many others that should disturb us all.

Since Mr. Modi took power in 2014, India’s once-proud claim to being a free democratic society has collapsed on many fronts. Of the 180 nations surveyed in the 2023 World Press Freedom Index, India sits at 161, a scant three places above Russia. Its position on the Academic Freedom Index has nose-dived since Mr. Modi took office, putting it on a course that sharply resembles those of other electoral autocracies. The Freedom in the World index has tracked a steady erosion of Indian citizens’ political rights and civil liberties. On the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index, India has tumbled squarely into the ranks of “flawed democracies.”

A working paper from the Indian government dismisses such metrics as “perception-based.” Sadly, it is no “perception” that the government systematically harasses its critics by raiding the offices of think tanks, NGOs and media organizations, restricting freedom of entry and exit, and pressing nuisance lawsuits — most conspicuously against the opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, who was recently ejected from Parliament after his conviction on a ludicrous charge of having defamed everybody named “Modi.” It is no “perception” that Muslim history has been torn from national textbooks, cities with Islamic eponyms renamed and India’s only Muslim-majority state, Jammu and Kashmir, stripped of its autonomy.  

As for India’s readiness to partner on efforts to combat climate change — one of the Biden administration’s highest hopes — the Indian government has cracked down on climate activists and just removed evolution and the periodic table from the curriculum for under-16-year-olds in its ongoing assault on science.  

Healthier ways to engage with India begin with understanding that Mr. Modi’s version of India is no less skewed than Donald Trump’s of the United States, even if Mr. Modi has been more successful at getting the media and global elite to buy into it.

Why does it too often look like democracy is weaker than authoritarianism? And why do various rising dictatorship look increasingly like the one now unfolding in the US? The tactics authoritarians use worldwide keep looking more like what the GOP is doing to America, Putin is doing to Russia, and what Viktor Orban has done to Hungary.

The US believes it needs good relations with India to help it fight a new Cold War with China. But India has become mostly authoritarian. Modi is going to do what he sees as in his and India's interest, whether or not it is in the US interest. Sure, the US can and should be on at least somewhat friendly terms with dictatorships. But to praise dictators like Modi as presiding over "free and open" countries undermines democracy. India is no longer free or open. It seems that democracy can no longer defend itself very well against the rising global tide of authoritarianism.