We have the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church talking about how gay marriage is a sign of the apocalypse, or Russian TV talking about how meteorites are coming to punish Russians for homosexuality.

I think some people have blind faith in American institutions without knowing a whole lot about them and think they will stand up to Donald Trump and are indestructible. I actually think democracy is not a definable and achievable state. Any country is either becoming more democratic or less democratic. I think the United States hasn't tended to its journey toward democracy in a long time. It's been becoming less democratic, and right now it's in danger of becoming drastically less democratic.

The rest of Russia is watching the same television that Vladimir Putin is watching. As far as they're concerned, Pussy Riot was rightly convicted of blasphemy, and Putin has now finally showed some mercy and let them out early so they could spend New Year's with their kids. He was nice to them even though they are really nasty. That's the dominant view. This really is a war and the front line is really firm.

As a gay parent I must flee Russia or lose my children

The law in Russia bans "propaganda of homosexuality," which is defined as dissemination of information that can cause harm to the spiritual or physical development of children, including forming in them the erroneous impression of the social equality of traditional and nontraditional sexual relations. It's a law that actually enshrines second-class citizenship - it makes it a crime to claim social equality.

Fact-checking is a terrible way to report on Donald Trump's lying . It's like we enter into a dialogue with him. It's as though, he says "A," and we check "A," and it gives it no context. Saying that he's "misstating" is an even worse way of covering it. That's NPR's ridiculous policy of not calling his lies "lies." It's really destructive.

There's this American pretense, which is the pretense of the journalist with the view from nowhere - which has somehow morphed into the journalist who was born this morning. So, he doesn't know that Donald Trump lied yesterday, and the day before. So, he concludes that he doesn't know whether Trump lied accidentally or on purpose. You can only pretend not to know that if you don't know that he lied yesterday, and the day before. So, to my mind when NPR says they don't know if he's intentionally lying, they're lying. We have to be smarter about it.