Today's View
On Monday, the final chapter in the 2016 US presidential election will open — and almost certainly will quickly close. The 538 Electoral College electors will convene in state capitols across the country. This is the real presidential election. The one that took place on Nov. 8 decided how many electoral votes each candidate would get. Donald Trump won the electoral majority, 306 to 232, though Hillary Clinton garnered almost 3 million more popular votes.
Most states have laws that require electors to vote for the candidate who won that state’s popular vote, though the penalties for not doing so are usually mild. Twenty-one states place no requirement on electors. In this contentious political year, some Democrats have been encouraging Republican electors to vote their consciences and choose a president other than Mr. Trump. Republican officials who have been keeping a close watch on Republican electors say they are confident that only one elector is at risk of being “faithless.”
So, barring an extraordinary development, Monday is likely to be the concluding act in Election 2016.
John Yemma
yemma@csmonitor.com
The Republicans who are breaking ranks with Trump
Democrats might not be the only check on Donald Trump's power. This week, some Republicans have pushed back.
Francine Kiefer, Staff writer
One party-control of government does not mean no checks on the White House. Yes, Senate Democrats will be watching President-elect Donald Trump, but so will members of his own party.
In the past week, several Senate Republicans have raised warning flags over Mr. Trump’s nomination for secretary of State, ExxonMobil executive Rex Tillerson. They have also crossed the president-elect by demanding an investigation of Russian election-related hacking, as reported by United States intelligence. Trump says Russia has nothing to do with the hacking.
It’s unusual for lawmakers on the president’s team to actually block him when their party holds both chambers of Congress and the White House. But it’s not unheard of. Republican George W. Bush could not get immigration reform through the House when he tried it. And plenty of Democrats defected on health care under Bill Clinton. Further back, Democrats refused to let Franklin D. Roosevelt pack the Supreme Court.
“One-party government improves the odds of support, but it does not guarantee anything,” notes historian Julian Zelizer, of Princeton University in New Jersey, in an email.
Right now, Republicans are pretty excited about Trump’s early priorities: rolling back regulations, repealing the Affordable Care Act, and reforming the tax code. But they will hold only a narrow 52-to-48 majority in the Senate – and a dozen GOP senators either refused to endorse Trump or rescinded their endorsement. Sen. Jeff Flake (R) of Arizona famously said he would not be able to attend the GOP convention last summer because he had to mow his lawn.
Even before Trump takes office, several Republicans are already signaling that they will be willing to stand up to Trump on certain issues.
Read the full article on csmonitor.com
Trump's 'first family' approach to governing: How unusual?
American history is full of first sons and daughters who did just about everything. But Donald Trump's situation appears unique.
Peter Grier, Staff writer
United States elections raise an individual to the presidency. In doing so they elevate an entire family – children included.
Sometimes that works out great. Think of John Eisenhower, the son of Dwight Eisenhower who became an Army brigadier general and military historian.
But things don’t always go well. Adult children have been trials, distractions, and/or political problems for presidents since the dawn of the republic.
Enter President-elect Donald Trump’s oldest kids, Donald Jr., Eric, and Ivanka. In some important ways, the controversies generated by their relationship to their dad and his companies are new. In others they aren’t.
President Adams appointed his son John Quincy as American minister to Prussia. The son objected, foreseeing that critics would charge the appointment was nepotism.
But John Quincy was highly qualified, and his astute dispatches helped the US avoid a war with France. Later, he served as secretary of State and president.
Then there was James Roosevelt, President Franklin Roosevelt’s eldest son, who used his influence to help a colleague win exclusive rights to distribute British liquor brands in the US following Prohibition. James made money by writing insurance on the shipments.
Already, Mr. Trump is involved in an uproar over the involvement of his children in the presidential transition and the family business. The most recent incident involved all three sitting in on his meeting with Silicon Valley business leaders Wednesday.
His children are all vice presidents of the Trump Corp. and the sons, at least, plan to remain so.
The big difference with some past examples is that Trump approves of the arrangement and is directing it. He also would profit from actions they take.
“[Trump] needs to make a clean break,” said Norm Eisen, who served as President Obama’s ethics lawyer, this week.
Read the full article on csmonitor.com
Fossil fuels, yes. But Trump energy team isn't a one-note band.
The team includes an Energy nominee who knows wind power can work, a State Department nominee who has supported the Paris climate deal, and an Interior nominee who's not big on selling off federal lands.
Zack Colman, Staff Writer
At first glance, the incoming Trump administration shows one consistent face to the world when it comes to energy policy: promote fossil fuel development and jobs, and tell liberal climate worriers to go home.
That message has seeped through Donald Trump’s own speeches and tweets. It echoes in the views of some close policy advisors and financial backers. And it’s corroborated in key cabinet picks from fossil-fuel states.
But if that broad pattern is clear, the Trump worldview on energy is in some ways anything but a foregone conclusion. Scratch beneath the surface, and the signals coming from the Trump transition are about eclecticism, apparent contradictions, and an uncertain policy agenda that largely remains to be written.
Trump’s choice to head the State Department, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, has supported a carbon tax and staying in the Paris climate change agreement. Rep. Ryan Zinke, the Montana Republican slated to lead the Interior Department, has opposed selling federal land to states and private holders. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who Trump wants to place atop the Energy Department, saw the Lone Star State take advantage of federal wind energy subsidies that enabled it to become the nation’s top wind producer.
Those policies all collide with separate blueprints released by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, whose energy director leads Mr. Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency transition, and by the House Freedom Caucus, a collection of far right Republicans. The ideological adherents to those groups were among the first to support Trump’s run for the presidency.
And the policy views of cabinet officers will matter.
“Personnel is policy, everywhere and at all times,” Mike McKenna, an energy lobbyist who formerly led Trump’s Energy Department transition team until the president-elect banned lobbyists, says in an email.
While policy generally comes from the top, the dynamics create a confusing picture of what Trump intends to pursue on energy and the environment. Partly, this may reflect the learning curve ahead for Trump. It’s also not yet clear whether it will be him or his Cabinet picks steering policy.
Read the full article on csmonitor.com
Why fake news holds such allure
Many readers of fake news say it is their most reliable source – even when they know it's fake. It points to the accelerating trend of readers looking for news that only confirms their own views.
Story Hinckley, Staff writer
Rodney Sparks, a truck driver from Indiana, says the “fake news” debate today reminds him a lot of a book report he did in high school.
His teacher assigned a book report on World War II, so he decided to interview his grandmother who was alive during the war and living as a “farmer’s wife” in Indiana.
“But when I turned it in, I got an ‘F’!” says Mr. Sparks. “The teacher said ‘Well, this is not what’s in the books,’ and my grandmother said, ‘Who cares? I was there.’ They got me an F for content that wasn’t all ‘factual.’ ”
Liberty Writers News, Alex Jones’s Info Wars, and Ending the Fed are among a group of websites that rose in popularity among Donald Trump’s supporters during the 2016 presidential election. But these same sites have been called out as fake news, spreading lies and conspiracy theories – such as Pope Francis’ endorsement of Trump or various murder-suicides of Hillary Clinton’s staffers – without any of journalism's traditional fact-checking.
In Monitor interviews, fake news readers defend these outlets as alternative media that mirror their own rejection of the Republican and Democratic political establishments, as well as a mass media that underestimated and shamed their faith in Mr. Trump. Some fans insist on the sites’ integrity, but others say the facts don’t really matter: like Sparks’s book report, lived perception displaces accuracy.
In that way, fake news is the ultimatum of a political news culture that has increasingly focused on confirming readers’ worldview.
“We don’t want to feel uncomfortable, so we expose ourselves to select information so we feel good about ourselves,” says Clare Wadel, research director at First Draft, a nonprofit that advocates for truth in the digital sphere.
Read the full article on csmonitor.com
People Making a Difference
The woman behind #OscarsSoWhite
Gregory M. Lamb, Correspondent
Jan. 15, 2015, found April Reign glued to the TV while she dressed for the day at home. She was eager to find out who would be nominated for that year’s Oscars, the Academy Awards.
As the names of actors and actresses, directors and costume designers, film editors and cinematographers were announced, she was suddenly struck by something about the list: None of them were people of color.
She was just beginning to use Twitter as a way to express her thoughts (today she has about 53,000 followers), so she tapped out her very first tweet on the subject: “#OscarsSoWhite they asked to touch my hair.”
The tweet was meant to be “very sarcastic and cheeky,” says Ms. Reign, an African-American and former lawyer – to convey how out of touch Hollywood was with black Americans. To her surprise, the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite quickly began to be used throughout the United States and around the world.
What had started as something said in jest became something much more: the focal point for a serious discussion on “diversity and inclusion in the Oscars, and in Hollywood in general,” she says.
Prodded by #OscarsSoWhite, Hollywood has begun to make changes. And Reign has been gratified by the surprising influence of her hashtag.
“I admire her ability to get to the heart of an issue succinctly and passionately in 140 Twitter characters,” Vanessa De Luca, editor in chief of Essence magazine, says in an email. “She is not afraid to say the hard, uncomfortable thing, or to make observations that might cause an army of trolls to flood her inbox. That takes courage and fortitude.”
Read the full article on csmonitor.com
Editorial: The Monitor's View
How Obama can respond to Russian hacking
By the Monitor's Editorial Board
President Obama has promised a “proportional” response to the Russian cyberattack on the Democratic and Republican political committees during the 2016 election. In some ways, his dilemma over how to respond is similar to the one faced by President John F. Kennedy in 1962 at the height of the cold war. After the Soviet Union placed nuclear-capable missiles in Cuba, Kennedy had to ask: Exactly where will retaliation lead?
The dangerous standoff during the Cuban crisis taught Moscow and Washington a lesson about their reliance on the fear of mutual assured destruction with powerful weapons. Such a fear is not just mad, it can be counterproductive.
By 1964, the United States and Soviet Union started discussions that led to the first agreement to place restraints on nuclear and missile systems. More pacts followed as well as one for peaceful use of nuclear power.
Might Russia and the US be at a similar point in setting international norms to prevent cyberwarfare – and the promotion of cyberstability? The groundwork has been laid for such agreements.
About 68 countries have signed the 2001 Budapest Convention on Cybercrime. In 2015, China and the US made an informal agreement that countries should not support cybertheft for commercial gain. The Group of Twenty nations has affirmed that international law applies to the conduct of governments in cyberspace. Meanwhile, a United Nations panel, known as the Group of Governmental Experts, continues talks on setting rules of the road in all areas of the cyber communication.
In a new book, “Securing Cyberspace – International and Asian Perspective,” India security expert Arvind Gupta writes: “Unlike the other commons, namely the land, sea and space, wherein international law has grown immediately, cyberspace is still largely lawless. Sustained discussion by international experts is necessary to generate ideas on the way forward towards building a consensus on cyber-security issues.”
Just as fear had to be addressed during the cold war’s reliance on nuclear weapons, so must the Digital Age come up with new codes of conduct. If the world can safeguard the Internet with rules, says Michael Fallon, Britain’s defense secretary, “A hundred years from now our successors will look back on this moment, the dawn of a new cyber age, as the moment when a potentially devastating threat turned into a dazzling economic and social opportunity.”
Mr. Obama’s response to the Russian hacking could be a defining moment, not for retaliation but for negotiations for peace in cyberspace.
A Christian Science Perspective
Alone but not lonely
It’s that time of year again, when it feels as if everyone is making plans about whom they’ll be spending Christmas with. On this day, many people are convinced that to be alone, or separated from family, would feel terribly lonely.
Of course, there are many fine, generous reasons to share the holidays with family or friends – to shower them with attention and enfold them in love. But that’s quite different from thinking the day would be empty, and we’d be missing out, if we couldn’t be with the companions of our choice. It is possible, even natural, to feel joy and fulfillment spending this holiday in quiet solitude, or in service to others. It is, after all, a “holy day” – a day when Christians celebrate the humble nativity, or emergence into human experience, of Christ Jesus. And it’s a day when we can honor Jesus as the Messiah, the God-sent Savior of humanity.
The Scriptures tell us that Jesus often spent long hours alone in prayer. Alone, but not lonely, because those hours were filled with a spiritual sense of his Father’s (God’s) presence and love. “I am not alone,” he said more than once, “because the Father is with me” (John 16:32). It was Jesus’ pure spirituality and divine origin that gave him such a clear sense of God’s loving ever-presence.
To Jesus, his Father was divine Love, a constant and real companion. And it’s not hard to see how this could be. Think about how the love expressed by others can make us feel: patient, accepted, comforted, companioned. It can also impel us to be kinder and more understanding. These are things that bring fulfillment to our lives. We tend to think it’s the person we’re with making us feel that way, but it’s actually the spiritual qualities of thought we feel from them that make us feel loved. And in whatever form these thoughts come, or whomever they come through, their source is actually divine Love, God. So wouldn’t it make sense that if we go straight to the source – straight to the divine, all-loving Mind – we’ll find and feel this love that we long for?
When we do feel this love from God, it’s natural to want to share it. Over the years, my profession has often required me to work on Christmas Day. That meant that rarely could I make the journey to be with extended family; that even time with my own children and husband took a back seat to my work schedule. And while there were times when that felt like a big sacrifice for me and my family to make, over the years I learned to appreciate the way my work actually nudged me to enlarge the circle of my love and affection on the holidays. Often I spent the day with folks who wouldn’t see their families at all, and together we reached in thought and prayer for a higher sense of Christmas as the appearing in human consciousness of the holy presence and love of the Christ that Jesus so vividly evidenced. This tender Christ speaks gently but clearly to each heart; it voices the truth about man as a spiritual, not a material, creation. It brings a sense of peace and goodwill that transcends holiday traditions and expectations, and opens our hearts to Christ’s healing, satisfying love.
Spending time with others, being of service to them, or just surrounding them with affection and goodwill can be a wonderful way to share this love. But another powerful, practical expression of love is prayer. I know a number of people who choose to spend Christmas Day alone with God, praying for others. Whether praying for individuals, or for humanity in general, there’s ample evidence in the Bible, and continuing evidence in articles like this one, that humble prayer, motivated by unselfed love, brings tangible comfort, help, and healing. The Monitor’s founder, Mary Baker Eddy, once wrote, “I love to observe Christmas in quietude, humility, benevolence, charity, letting good will towards man, eloquent silence, prayer, and praise express my conception of Truth’s appearing” (“The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany,” p. 262).
So wherever you are and whomever you are with this Christmas, may you feel the power and peace of knowing that God, divine Love, is with you and yours. And may the spirit of Truth and Love that brought Christ Jesus into view and animated his life and ministry be with you, making it a truly holy day.
Linda Kohler
Read this article and others like it on csmonitor.com
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- Mary Baker Eddy
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