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Home / Apple / How Donald Trump Could Build an Autocracy in the U.S.
How Donald Trump Could Build an Autocracy in the U.S.
Agent February 13, 2020 Apple Leave a comment 278 Views
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It's 2021, and President Donald Trump will shortly be sworn in for his second time period. The 45th president has visibly aged over the previous 4 years. He rests closely on his daughter Ivanka's arm throughout his rare public appearances.
Fortunately for him, he didn't must marketing campaign laborious for reelection. His has been a well-liked presidency: Big tax cuts, huge spending, and large deficits have labored their acquainted expansive magic. Wages have grown strongly in the Trump years, particularly for males with no school diploma, even when rising inflation is starting to chew into the good points. The president's supporters credit score his restrictive immigration insurance policies and his TrumpWorks infrastructure program.
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The president's critics, in the meantime, have discovered little listening to for his or her protests and complaints. A Senate investigation of Russian hacking throughout the 2016 presidential marketing campaign sputtered into inconclusive partisan wrangling. Concerns about Trump's purported conflicts of curiosity excited debate in Washington however by no means drew a lot consideration from the wider American public.
Allegations of fraud and self-dealing in the TrumpWorks program, and elsewhere, have likewise been shrugged off. The president often tweets out information of manufacturing unit openings and large hiring bulletins: "I'm bringing back your jobs," he has stated time and again. Voters appear to have believed him—and are grateful.
Most Americans intuit that their president and his family members have turn out to be vastly wealthier over the previous 4 years. But rumors of graft are simple to dismiss. Because Trump has by no means launched his tax returns, nobody actually is aware of.
Anyway, doesn't everyone do it? On the eve of the 2018 congressional elections, WikiLeaks launched years of funding statements by outstanding congressional Democrats indicating that they'd lengthy earned above-market returns. As the air full of allegations of insider buying and selling and crony capitalism, the public subsided into weary cynicism. The Republicans held each homes of Congress that November, and Trump loyalists shouldered apart the pre-Trump management.
The enterprise neighborhood realized its lesson early. "You work for me, you don't criticize me," the president was reported to have instructed one main federal contractor, after knocking billions off his firm's stock-market valuation with an indignant tweet. Wise enterprise leaders take care to credit score Trump's private management for any excellent news, and to keep away from saying something which may displease the president or his household.
The media have grown noticeably extra pleasant to Trump as effectively. The proposed merger of AT&T and Time Warner was delayed for greater than a 12 months, throughout which Time Warner's CNN unit labored ever more durable to satisfy Trump's definition of equity. Under the settlement that settled the Department of Justice's antitrust criticism towards Amazon, the firm's founder, Jeff Bezos, has divested himself of The Washington Post. The paper's new proprietor—an investor group primarily based in Slovakia—has closed the printed version and refocused the paper on municipal politics and way of life protection.
Meanwhile, social media flow into ever-wilder rumors. Some individuals imagine them; others don't. It's laborious work to determine what's true.
Nobody's repealed the First Amendment, after all, and Americans stay as free to talk their minds as ever—supplied they'll abdomen seeing their timelines refill with obscene abuse and indignant threats from the pro-Trump troll armies that police Facebook and Twitter. Rather than cope with digital thugs, younger individuals more and more drift to much less political media like Snapchat and Instagram.
Trump-critical media do proceed to search out elite audiences. Their investigations nonetheless win Pulitzer Prizes; their reporters settle for invites to anxious conferences about corruption, digital-journalism requirements, the finish of nato, and the rise of populist authoritarianism. Yet someway all of this earnest effort feels much less and fewer related to American politics. President Trump communicates with the individuals immediately through his Twitter account, ushering his supporters towards favorable info at Fox News or Breitbart.
Despite the hand-wringing, the nation has in some ways modified a lot lower than some feared or hoped 4 years in the past. Ambitious Republican plans however, the American social-welfare system, as most individuals encounter it, has remained largely intact throughout Trump's first time period. The predicted wave of mass deportations of unlawful immigrants by no means materialized. A big unlawful workforce stays in the nation, with the tacit understanding that as long as these immigrants keep away from politics, holding their heads down and their mouths shut, no person will look very laborious for them.
"The benefit of controlling a modern state is less the power to persecute the innocent, more the power to protect the guilty."
African Americans, younger individuals, and the just lately naturalized encounter rising difficulties casting a vote in most states. But for all the discuss of the rollback of rights, company America nonetheless seeks range in employment. Same-sex marriage stays the regulation of the land. Americans are not any extra and no much less more likely to say "Merry Christmas" than they had been earlier than Trump took workplace.
People crack jokes about Trump's National Security Agency listening in on them. They can not deeply imply it; in spite of everything, there's no much less sexting in America at the moment than 4 years in the past. Still, with all the hacks and leaks taking place today—significantly to the politically outspoken—it's simply widespread sense to watch out what you say in an e mail or on the cellphone. When has politics not been a unclean enterprise? When have the wealthy and powerful not largely gotten their method? The good factor to do is tune out the political yammer, thoughts your personal enterprise, take pleasure in a comparatively affluent time, and depart the inquiries to the troublemakers.
In an 1888 lecture, James Russell Lowell, a founding father of this journal, challenged the joyful assumption that the Constitution was a "machine that would go of itself." Lowell was proper. Checks and balances is a metaphor, not a mechanism.
Everything imagined above—and the whole lot described beneath—is feasible provided that many individuals aside from Donald Trump agree to allow it. It can all be stopped, if particular person residents and public officers make the proper selections. The story instructed right here, like that instructed by Charles Dickens's Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, is a narrative not of issues that shall be, however of issues that could be. Other paths stay open. It is as much as Americans to determine which one the nation will observe.
No society, not even one as wealthy and lucky as the United States has been, is assured a profitable future. When early Americans wrote issues like "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty," they didn't accomplish that to supply bromides for future bumper stickers. They lived in a world in which authoritarian rule was the norm, in which rulers habitually claimed the powers and belongings of the state as their very own private property.
The train of political energy is totally different at the moment than it was then—however maybe not so totally different as we would think about. Larry Diamond, a sociologist at Stanford, has described the previous decade as a interval of "democratic recession." Worldwide, the variety of democratic states has diminished. Within a lot of the remaining democracies, the high quality of governance has deteriorated.
What has occurred in Hungary since 2010 affords an instance—and a blueprint for would-be strongmen. Hungary is a member state of the European Union and a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights. It has elections and uncensored web. Yet Hungary is ceasing to be a free nation.
Viktor Orbán of Hungary, the late Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, and Jacob Zuma of South Africa all turned their international locations away from liberal democracy and towards kleptocracy. Worldwide, democracy is in recession. (Sean Gallup; Avery Cunliffe / Photoshot; Chesnot; Getty)
The transition has been nonviolent, usually not even very dramatic. Opponents of the regime will not be murdered or imprisoned, though many are harassed with constructing inspections and tax audits. If they work for the authorities, or for an organization vulnerable to authorities stress, they threat their jobs by talking out. Nonetheless, they're free to to migrate anytime they like. Those with cash may even take it with them. Day in and day trip, the regime works extra by means of inducements than by means of intimidation. The courts are packed, and forgiving of the regime's allies. Friends of the authorities win state contracts at excessive costs and borrow on simple phrases from the central financial institution. Those on the inside develop wealthy by favoritism; these on the outdoors endure from the normal deterioration of the economic system. As one shrewd observer instructed me on a latest go to, "The benefit of controlling a modern state is less the power to persecute the innocent, more the power to protect the guilty."
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's rule over Hungary does rely on elections. These stay open and kind of free—at the very least in the sense that ballots are counted precisely. Yet they aren't fairly truthful. Electoral guidelines favor incumbent power-holders in methods each apparent and delicate. Independent media lose promoting beneath authorities stress; authorities allies personal increasingly media shops every year. The authorities sustains help even in the face of dangerous information by artfully producing an countless sequence of controversies that depart culturally conservative Hungarians feeling misunderstood and victimized by liberals, foreigners, and Jews.
If this had been taking place in Honduras, we'd know what to name it. It's taking place right here as a substitute, and so we're baffled.
You might inform the same story of the slide away from democracy in South Africa beneath Nelson Mandela's successors, in Venezuela beneath the thug-thief Hugo Chávez, or in the Philippines beneath the murderous Rodrigo Duterte. A comparable transformation has just lately begun in Poland, and will come to France ought to Marine Le Pen, the National Front's candidate, win the presidency.
Outside the Islamic world, the 21st century isn't an period of ideology. The grand utopian visions of the 19th century have handed out of style. The nightmare totalitarian initiatives of the 20th have been overthrown or have disintegrated, forsaking solely outdated remnants: North Korea, Cuba. What is spreading at the moment is repressive kleptocracy, led by rulers motivated by greed relatively than by the deranged idealism of Hitler or Stalin or Mao. Such rulers rely much less on terror and extra on rule-twisting, the manipulation of data, and the co-optation of elites.
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The United States is after all a really strong democracy. Yet no human contrivance is tamper-proof, a constitutional democracy least of all. Some options of the American system massively inhibit the abuse of workplace: the separation of powers inside the federal authorities; the division of tasks between the federal authorities and the states. Federal businesses pleasure themselves on their independence; the court docket system is large, complicated, and proof against improper affect.
Yet the American system can be perforated by vulnerabilities no much less harmful for being so acquainted. Supreme amongst these vulnerabilities is reliance on the private qualities of the man or girl who wields the superior powers of the presidency. A British prime minister can lose energy in minutes if she or he forfeits the confidence of the majority in Parliament. The president of the United States, on the different hand, is restrained firstly by his personal ethics and public spirit. What occurs if any person involves the excessive workplace missing these qualities?
Over the previous era, now we have seen ominous indicators of a breakdown of the American political system: the willingness of congressional Republicans to push the United States to the brink of a default on its nationwide obligations in 2013 in order to attain some extent in funds negotiations; Barack Obama's assertion of a unilateral government energy to confer authorized standing upon thousands and thousands of individuals illegally current in the United States—regardless of his personal prior acknowledgment that no such energy existed.
Donald Trump, nevertheless, represents one thing rather more radical. A president who plausibly owes his workplace at the very least in half to a clandestine intervention by a hostile overseas intelligence service? Who makes use of the bully pulpit to focus on particular person critics? Who creates blind trusts that aren't blind, invitations his youngsters to commingle personal and public enterprise, and someway will get the sad members of his personal political occasion both to endorse his selections or shrug them off? If this had been taking place in Honduras, we'd know what to name it. It's taking place right here as a substitute, and so we're baffled.
Video: David Frum on Donald Trump's Authoritarian Tendencies
"Ambition have to be made to counteract ambition." With these phrases, written greater than 200 years in the past, the authors of the Federalist Papers defined the most vital safeguard of the American constitutional system. They then added this promise: "In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates." Congress enacts legal guidelines, appropriates funds, confirms the president's appointees. Congress can subpoena information, query officers, and even impeach them. Congress can defend the American system from an overbearing president.
But will it?
As politics has turn out to be polarized, Congress has more and more turn out to be a examine solely on presidents of the reverse occasion. Recent presidents having fun with a same-party majority in Congress—Barack Obama in 2009 and 2010, George W. Bush from 2003 by means of 2006—normally obtained their method. And congressional oversight may effectively be carried out even much less diligently throughout the Trump administration.
The first cause to worry weak diligence is the oddly inverse relationship between President Trump and the congressional Republicans. In the bizarre course of occasions, it's the incoming president who burns with keen coverage concepts. Consequently, it's the president who should adapt to—and infrequently overlook—the petty human weaknesses and vices of members of Congress in order to advance his agenda. This time, it is going to be Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, doing the advancing—and consequently the overlooking.
Trump has scant curiosity in congressional Republicans' concepts, doesn't share their ideology, and cares little for his or her destiny. He can—and would—break religion with them in an immediate to additional his personal pursuits. Yet right here they're, on the verge of reaching the whole lot they've hoped to realize for years, if not many years. They owe this opportunity solely to Trump's potential to ship an important margin of votes in a handful of states—Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania—which has supplied a celebration that can't win the nationwide widespread vote a fleeting alternative to behave as a decisive nationwide majority. The biggest threat to all their initiatives and plans is the exact same X issue that gave them their alternative: Donald Trump, and his famously erratic persona. What excites Trump is his approval ranking, his wealth, his energy. The day might come when these ends can be higher served by jettisoning the institutional Republican Party in favor of an advert hoc populist coalition, becoming a member of nationalism to beneficiant social spending—a mixture that's labored effectively for authoritarians in locations like Poland. Who doubts Trump would do it? Not Paul Ryan. Not Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority chief. For the first time since the administration of John Tyler in the 1840s, a majority in Congress should fear about their president defecting from them relatively than the different method round.
A scandal involving the president might likewise wreck the whole lot that Republican congressional leaders have waited years to perform. However deftly they handle the whole lot else, they can not stop such a scandal. But there's one factor they'll do: their utmost to not discover out about it.
"Do you have any concerns about Steve Bannon being in the White House?," CNN's Jake Tapper requested Ryan in November. "I don't know Steve Bannon, so I have no concerns," answered the speaker. "I trust Donald's judgment."
Asked on 60 Minutes whether or not he believed Donald Trump's declare that "millions" of unlawful votes had been solid, Ryan answered: "I don't know. I'm not really focused on these things."
What about Trump's conflicts of curiosity? "This is not what I'm concerned about in Congress," Ryan stated on CNBC. Trump ought to deal with his conflicts "however he wants to."
Ryan has realized his prudence the laborious method. Following the airing of Trump's previous feedback, caught on tape, about his forceful sexual advances on girls, Ryan stated he'd now not marketing campaign for Trump. Ryan's web favorability ranking amongst Republicans dropped by 28 factors in lower than 10 days. Once unassailable in the occasion, he all of the sudden discovered himself disliked by 45 p.c of Republicans.
As Ryan's cherished plans transfer nearer and nearer to presidential signature, Congress's subservience to the president will probably intensify. Whether it's allegations of Russian hacks of Democratic Party inside communications, or allegations of self-enrichment by the Trump household, or favorable therapy of Trump enterprise associates, the Republican caucus in Congress will probably discover itself conscripted into serving as Donald Trump's moral bodyguard.
The Senate traditionally has supplied extra scope to dissenters than the House. Yet even that establishment will discover itself beneath stress. Two of the Senate's most vital Republican Trump skeptics shall be up for reelection in 2018: Arizona's Jeff Flake and Texas's Ted Cruz. They won't wish to provoke a same-party president—particularly not in a 12 months when the president's occasion can afford to lose a seat or two in order to self-discipline dissenters. Mitch McConnell is an much more results-oriented politician than Paul Ryan—and his spouse, Elaine Chao, has been supplied a Cabinet place, which could tilt him additional in Trump's favor.
Ambition will counteract ambition solely till ambition discovers that conformity serves its targets higher. At that point, Congress, the physique anticipated to examine presidential energy, might turn out to be the president's most potent enabler.
Discipline inside the congressional ranks shall be strictly enforced not solely by the occasion management and occasion donors, but in addition by the overwhelming affect of Fox News. Trump versus Clinton was not 2016's solely contest between an overbearing man and a restrained girl. Just such a contest was waged at Fox, between Sean Hannity and Megyn Kelly. In each circumstances, the early indicators appeared to favor the girls. Yet in the finish it was the males who gained, Hannity much more decisively than Trump. Hannity's present, which turned an unapologetic infomercial for Trump, pulled into first place on the community in mid-October. Kelly's present tumbled to fifth place, behind even The Five, a roundtable program that airs at 5 p.m. Kelly landed on her toes, after all, however Fox realized its lesson: Trump sells; important protection doesn't. Since the election, the community has awarded Kelly's former 9 p.m. time slot to Tucker Carlson, who's positioning himself as a Trump fanatic in the Hannity mould.
A president decided to thwart the regulation to guard himself and people in his circle has many means to take action.
From the standpoint of the typical Republican member of Congress, Fox stays omnipotent: the single most vital supply of visibility and affirmation with the voters whom a Republican politician cares about. In 2009, in the run-up to the Tea Party insurgency, South Carolina's Bob Inglis crossed Fox, criticizing Glenn Beck and telling individuals at a town-hall assembly that they need to flip his exhibit. He was drowned out by booing, and the following 12 months, he misplaced his main with solely 29 p.c of the vote, a crushing repudiation for an incumbent untouched by any scandal.
Fox is bolstered by a service fleet of supplementary establishments: tremendous pacs, assume tanks, and conservative internet and social-media presences, which now embrace such former pariahs as Breitbart and Alex Jones. So lengthy as the service fleet coheres—and until public opinion turns sharply towards the president—oversight of Trump by the Republican congressional majority will very probably be cautious, conditional, and restricted.
Donald Trump won't got down to construct an authoritarian state. His speedy precedence appears more likely to be to make use of the presidency to complement himself. But as he does so, he might want to defend himself from authorized threat. Being Trump, he may also inevitably want to inflict payback on his critics. Construction of an equipment of impunity and revenge will start haphazardly and opportunistically. But it can speed up. It must.
If Congress is quiescent, what can Trump do? A greater query, maybe, is what can't he do?
Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, who usually articulates Trumpist concepts extra candidly than Trump himself may assume prudent, supplied a pointy lesson in how troublesome it is going to be to implement legal guidelines towards an uncooperative president. During a radio roundtable in December, on the matter of whether or not it will violate anti-nepotism legal guidelines to deliver Trump's daughter and son-in-law onto the White House workers, Gingrich stated: The president "has, frankly, the power of the pardon. It is a totally open power, and he could simply say, 'Look, I want them to be my advisers. I pardon them if anybody finds them to have behaved against the rules. Period.' And technically, under the Constitution, he has that level of authority."
That assertion is true, and it factors to a deeper reality: The United States could also be a nation of legal guidelines, however the correct functioning of the regulation relies upon upon the competence and integrity of these charged with executing it. A president decided to thwart the regulation in order to guard himself and people in his circle has many means to take action.
The energy of the pardon, deployed to defend not solely household but in addition those that would defend the president's pursuits, dealings, and indiscretions, is one such means. The powers of appointment and elimination are one other. The president appoints and might take away the commissioner of the IRS. He appoints and might take away the inspectors normal who oversee the inside workings of the Cabinet departments and main businesses. He appoints and might take away the 93 U.S. attorneys, who've the energy to provoke and to finish federal prosecutions. He appoints and might take away the legal professional normal, the deputy legal professional normal, and the head of the felony division at the Department of Justice.
There are hedges on these powers, each customary and constitutional, together with the Senate's energy to verify (or not) presidential appointees. Yet the hedges might not maintain in the future as robustly as they've in the previous.
Senators of the president's occasion historically have anticipated to be consulted on the U.S.-attorney picks in their states, a extremely coveted patronage plum. But the U.S. attorneys of most curiosity to Trump—above all the ones in New York and New Jersey, the locus of a lot of his companies and financial institution dealings—come from states the place there are not any Republican senators to bear in mind. And whereas the U.S. attorneys in Florida, residence to Mar-a-Lago and different Trump properties, certainly concern him practically as a lot, if there's one Republican senator whom Trump would cheerfully disregard, it's Marco Rubio.
The traditions of independence and professionalism that prevail inside the federal law-enforcement equipment, and inside the civil service extra typically, will are likely to restrain a president's energy. Yet in the years forward, these restraints may show much less strong than they appear. Republicans in Congress have lengthy advocated reforms to expedite the firing of underperforming civil servants. In the summary, there's a lot to advocate this concept. If reform is dramatic and occurs in the subsequent two years, nevertheless, the steadiness of energy between the political and the skilled components of the federal authorities will shift, decisively, at exactly the second when the political components are most aggressive. The intelligence businesses in specific would probably discover themselves uncovered to retribution from a president enraged at them for reporting on Russia's assist to his election marketing campaign. "As you know from his other career, Donald likes to fire people." So New Jersey Governor Chris Christie joked to a roomful of Republican donors at the occasion's nationwide conference in July. It can be a mighty energy—and extremely helpful.
The courts, although they could slowly be filled with judges inclined to listen to the president's arguments sympathetically, are additionally a examine, after all. But it's already troublesome to carry a president to account for monetary improprieties. As Donald Trump appropriately instructed reporters and editors from The New York Times on November 22, presidents will not be certain by the conflict-of-interest guidelines that govern everybody else in the government department.
Presidents from Jimmy Carter onward have balanced this distinctive exemption with a singular act of disclosure: the voluntary publication of their income-tax returns. At a press convention on January 11, Trump made clear that he won't observe that custom. His legal professional as a substitute insisted that the whole lot the public must know is captured by his annual financial-disclosure report, which is required by regulation for executive-branch staff and from which presidents will not be exempt. But a look at the reporting types (you possibly can learn them your self ) will present their inadequacy to Trump's state of affairs. They are written with shares and bonds in thoughts, to seize mortgage liabilities and deferred government compensation—not the labyrinthine offers of the Trump Organization and its ramifying networks of companions and brand-licensing associates. The reality is in the tax returns, and they won't be forthcoming.
Even outright bribe-taking by an elected official is surprisingly troublesome to prosecute, and was made more durable nonetheless by the Supreme Court in 2016, when it overturned, by an eight–zero vote, the conviction of former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell. McDonnell and his spouse had taken useful presents of money and luxurious items from a favor seeker. McDonnell then arrange conferences between the favor seeker and state officers who had been in a place to assist him. A jury had even accepted that the "quid" was certainly "pro" the "quo"—an evidentiary burden that has usually protected accused bribe-takers in the previous. The McDonnells had been convicted on a mixed 20 counts.
The Supreme Court objected, nevertheless, that the decrease courts had interpreted federal anticorruption regulation too broadly. The related statute utilized solely to "official acts." The Court outlined such acts very strictly, and held that "setting up a meeting, talking to another official, or organizing an event—without more—does not fit that definition of an 'official act.' "
Members of the Trump household—Melania, Ivanka, Eric, and Donald Jr.—take heed to the second presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, in October. (Tasos Katopodis / AFP / Getty)
Trump is poised to mingle enterprise and authorities with an audacity and on a scale extra paying homage to a pacesetter in a post-Soviet republic than something ever earlier than seen in the United States. Glimpses of his household's wealth-seeking actions will probably emerge throughout his presidency, as they did throughout the transition. Trump's Indian enterprise companions dropped by Trump Tower and posted footage with the then-president-elect on Facebook, alerting of us again residence that they had been now powers to be reckoned with. The Argentine media reported that Trump had mentioned the progress of a Trump-branded constructing in Buenos Aires throughout a congratulatory cellphone name from the nation's president. (A spokesman for the Argentine president denied that the two males had mentioned the constructing on their name.) Trump's daughter Ivanka sat in on a gathering with the Japanese prime minister—a helpful assembly for her, since a government-owned financial institution has a big possession stake in the Japanese firm with which she was negotiating a licensing deal.
Suggestive. Disturbing. But unlawful, post-McDonnell? How many presidentially detachable officers would dare even provoke an inquiry?
You might hear a lot point out of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution throughout Trump's presidency: "No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State."
But as written, this appears to current plenty of loopholes. First, the clause applies solely to the president himself, to not his relations. Second, it appears to manipulate advantages solely from overseas governments and state-owned enterprises, not from personal enterprise entities. Third, Trump's attorneys have argued that the clause applies solely to presents and titles, to not enterprise transactions. Fourth, what does "the Consent of Congress" imply? If Congress is apprised of an obvious emolument, and declines to do something about it, does that qualify as consent? Finally, how is that this clause enforced? Could somebody take President Trump to court docket and demand some type of injunction? Who? How? Will the courts grant standing? The clause appears to presume an energetic Congress and a vigilant public. What if these are missing?
It is important to acknowledge that Trump will use his place not solely to complement himself; he'll enrich loads of different individuals too, each the powerful and—typically, for public consumption—the comparatively powerless. Venezuela, a secure democracy from the late 1950s by means of the 1990s, was corrupted by a politics of non-public favoritism, as Hugo Chávez used state assets to bestow presents on supporters. Venezuelan state TV even aired a daily program to showcase weeping recipients of latest homes and free home equipment. Americans just lately obtained a preview of their very own model of that present as grateful Carrier staff thanked then-President-elect Trump for holding their jobs in Indiana.
"I just couldn't believe that this guy … he's not even president yet and he worked on this deal with the company," T. J. Bray, a 32-year-old Carrier worker, instructed Fortune. "I'm just in shock. A lot of the workers are in shock. We can't believe something good finally happened to us. It felt like a victory for the little people."
Trump will attempt laborious throughout his presidency to create an ambiance of non-public munificence, in which graft doesn't matter, as a result of guidelines and establishments don't matter. He will wish to affiliate financial profit with private favor. He will create private constituencies, and implicate different individuals in his corruption. That, over time, is what really subverts the establishments of democracy and the rule of regulation. If the public can't be induced to care, the energy of the investigators serving at Trump's pleasure shall be diminished all the extra.
"The first activity for our new administration shall be to liberate our residents from the crime and terrorism and lawlessness that threatens our communities." Those had been Donald Trump's phrases at the Republican National Convention. The newly nominated presidential candidate then listed a sequence of outrages and assaults, particularly towards cops.
America was shocked to its core when our cops in Dallas had been so brutally executed. Immediately after Dallas, we've seen continued threats and violence towards our law-enforcement officers. Law officers have been shot or killed in latest days in Georgia, Missouri, Wisconsin, Kansas, Michigan, and Tennessee.
On Sunday, extra police had been gunned down in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Three had been killed, and three had been very, very badly injured. An assault on regulation enforcement is an assault on all Americans. I've a message to each final individual threatening the peace on our streets and the security of our police: When I take the oath of workplace subsequent 12 months, I'll restore regulation and order to our nation.
You would by no means know from Trump's phrases that the common variety of felonious killings of police throughout the Obama administration's tenure was virtually one-third decrease than it was in the early 1990s, a decline that tracked with the normal fall in violent crime that has so blessed American society. There had been an increase in killings of police in 2014 and 2015 from the all-time low in 2013—however solely again to the 2012 degree. Not yearly shall be the greatest on file.
A mistaken perception that crime is spiraling uncontrolled—that terrorists roam at giant in America and that police are often gunned down—represents a substantial political asset for Donald Trump. Seventy-eight p.c of Trump voters believed that crime had worsened throughout the Obama years.
Civil unrest won't be an issue for the Trump presidency. It shall be a useful resource. Trump will probably wish to enflame extra of it.
In true police states, surveillance and repression maintain the energy of the authorities. But that's not how energy is gained and sustained in backsliding democracies. Polarization, not persecution, allows the fashionable intolerant regime.
By guile or by intuition, Trump understands this.
Whenever Trump stumbles into some type of bother, he reacts by choosing a divisive struggle. The morning after The Wall Street Journal printed a narrative about the extraordinary conflicts of curiosity surrounding Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, Trump tweeted that flag burners ought to be imprisoned or stripped of their citizenship. That night, as if on cue, slightly posse of oddballs obligingly burned flags for the cameras in entrance of the Trump International Hotel in New York. Guess which story dominated that day's information cycle?
Civil unrest won't be an issue for the Trump presidency. It shall be a useful resource. Trump will probably need to not repress it, however to publicize it—and the conservative entertainment-outrage complicated will eagerly help him. Immigration protesters marching with Mexican flags; Black Lives Matter demonstrators bearing antipolice slogans—these are the photos of the opposition that Trump will want his supporters to see. The extra offensively the protesters behave, the extra happy Trump shall be.
Calculated outrage is an outdated political trick, however no person in the historical past of American politics has deployed it as aggressively, as repeatedly, or with such success as Donald Trump. If there's harsh regulation enforcement by the Trump administration, it can profit the president to not the extent that it quashes unrest, however to the extent that it enflames extra of it, ratifying the apocalyptic imaginative and prescient that haunted his speech at the conference.
Trump supporters in Grand Rapids, Michigan, at a cease on Trump's postelection thank-you tour (Don Emmert / AFP / Getty)
At a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in December, Trump obtained to speaking about Vladimir Putin. "And then they said, 'You know he's killed reporters,' " Trump instructed the viewers. "And I don't like that. I'm totally against that. By the way, I hate some of these people, but I'd never kill them. I hate them. No, I think, no—these people, honestly—I'll be honest. I'll be honest. I would never kill them. I would never do that. Ah, let's see—nah, no, I wouldn't. I would never kill them. But I do hate them."
In the early days of the Trump transition, Nic Dawes, a journalist who has labored in South Africa, delivered an ominous warning to the American media about what to anticipate. "Get used to being stigmatized as 'opposition,' " he wrote. "The basic idea is simple: to delegitimize accountability journalism by framing it as partisan."
The rulers of backsliding democracies resent an unbiased press, however can not extinguish it. They might curb the media's urge for food for important protection by intimidating unfriendly journalists, as President Jacob Zuma and members of his occasion have achieved in South Africa. Mostly, nevertheless, fashionable strongmen search merely to discredit journalism as an establishment, by denying that such a factor as unbiased judgment can exist. All reporting serves an agenda. There is not any reality, solely competing makes an attempt to seize energy.
By filling the media house with weird innovations and brazen denials, purveyors of faux information hope to mobilize potential supporters with righteous wrath—and to demoralize potential opponents by nurturing the concept that everyone lies and nothing issues. A would-be kleptocrat is definitely higher served by spreading cynicism than by deceiving followers with false beliefs: Believers may be disillusioned; individuals who count on to listen to solely lies can hardly complain when a lie is uncovered. The inculcation of cynicism breaks down the distinction between these types of media that attempt their imperfect greatest to report the reality, and those who purvey falsehoods for causes of revenue or ideology. The New York Times turns into the equal of Russia's RT; The Washington Post of Breitbart; NPR of Infowars.
One story, nonetheless supremely disturbing, exemplifies the falsifying methodology. During November and December, the slow-moving California vote depend steadily pushed Hillary Clinton's lead over Donald Trump in the nationwide widespread vote additional and additional: previous 1 million, previous 1.5 million, previous 2 million, previous 2.5 million. Trump's share of the vote would in the end clock in beneath Richard Nixon's in 1960, Al Gore's in 2000, John Kerry's in 2004, Gerald Ford's in 1976, and Mitt Romney's in 2012—and barely forward of Michael Dukakis's in 1988.
This consequence evidently gnawed at the president-elect. On November 27, Trump tweeted that he had in truth "won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally." He adopted up that astonishing, and unsubstantiated, assertion with an escalating sequence of tweets and retweets.
It's laborious to do justice to the breathtaking audacity of such a declare. If true, it will be so severe as to demand a felony investigation at a minimal, presumably spanning many states. But after all the declare was not true. Trump had not a smidgen of proof past his personal bruised emotions and web flotsam from flagrantly unreliable sources. Yet as soon as the president-elect lent his status to the loopy declare, it turned truth for many individuals. A survey by YouGov discovered that by December 1, 43 p.c of Republicans accepted the declare that thousands and thousands of individuals had voted illegally in 2016.
A transparent untruth had all of the sudden turn out to be a contested risk. When CNN's Jeff Zeleny appropriately reported on November 28 that Trump's tweet was baseless, Fox's Sean Hannity accused Zeleny of media bias—after which proceeded to induce the incoming Trump administration to take a brand new tack with the White House press corps, and to punish reporters like Zeleny. "I think it's time to reevaluate the press and maybe change the traditional relationship with the press and the White House," Hannity stated. "My message tonight to the press is simple: You guys are done. You've been exposed as fake, as having an agenda, as colluding. You're a fake news organization."
This was no idiosyncratic mind wave of Hannity's. The earlier morning, Ari Fleischer, the former press secretary in George W. Bush's administration, had superior the same concept in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, suggesting that the White House might withhold credentials for its press conferences from media shops which are "too liberal or unfair." Newt Gingrich really helpful that Trump cease giving press conferences altogether.
Twitter, unmediated by the press, has proved an extraordinarily efficient communication software for Trump. And the whipping-up of probably violent Twitter mobs towards media critics is already a typical methodology of Trump's governance. Megyn Kelly blamed Trump and his marketing campaign's social-media director for inciting Trump's followers towards her to such a level that she felt compelled to rent armed guards to guard her household. I've talked with well-funded Trump supporters who communicate of recruiting a troll military explicitly modeled on these utilized by Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Russia's Putin to take management of the social-media house, intimidating some critics and overwhelming others by means of a blizzard of doubt-casting and misinformation. The WikiLeaks Task Force just lately tweeted—then unexpectedly deleted—a suggestion that it will construct a database to trace private and monetary info on all verified Twitter accounts, the type of accounts sometimes utilized by journalists at main media organizations. It's not laborious to think about how such compilations may very well be used to harass or intimidate.
Even so, it appears unlikely that President Trump will outright ship the cameras away. He craves media consideration an excessive amount of. But he and his group are serving discover new period in government-media relations is coming, an period in which all criticism is by definition oppositional—and all critics are to be handled as enemies.
In an on-line article for The New York Review of Books, the Russian-born journalist Masha Gessen brilliantly famous a commonality between Donald Trump and the man Trump admires a lot, Vladimir Putin. "Lying is the message," she wrote. "It's not just that both Putin and Trump lie, it is that they lie in the same way and for the same purpose: blatantly, to assert power over truth itself."
The lurid mass actions of the 20th century—communist, fascist, and different—have bequeathed to our imaginations an outdated picture of what 21st-century authoritarianism may seem like.
Whatever else occurs, Americans will not be going to assemble in parade-ground formations, any greater than they may crank a gramophone or dance the turkey trot. In a society the place few individuals stroll to work, why mobilize younger males in matching shirts to command the streets? If you're looking for to domineer and bully, you need your storm troopers to go surfing, the place the extra vital site visitors is. Demagogues want now not stand erect for hours orating right into a radio microphone. Tweet lies from a smartphone as a substitute.
"Populist-fueled democratic backsliding is difficult to counter," wrote the political scientists Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Erica Frantz late final 12 months. "Because it is subtle and incremental, there is no single moment that triggers widespread resistance or creates a focal point around which an opposition can coalesce … Piecemeal democratic erosion, therefore, typically provokes only fragmented resistance." Their statement was rooted in the experiences of nations starting from the Philippines to Hungary. It might apply right here too.
If individuals retreat into personal life, if critics develop quieter, if cynicism turns into endemic, the corruption will slowly turn out to be extra brazen, the intimidation of opponents stronger. Laws meant to make sure accountability or stop graft or defend civil liberties shall be weakened.
If the president makes use of his workplace to seize billions for himself and his household, his supporters will really feel empowered to take thousands and thousands. If he efficiently exerts energy to punish enemies, his successors will emulate his strategies.
If residents be taught that success in enterprise or in public service is dependent upon the favor of the president and his ruling clique, then it's not solely American politics that may change. The economic system shall be corrupted too, and with it the bigger tradition. A tradition that has accepted that graft is the norm, that guidelines don't matter as a lot as relationships with these in energy, and that individuals may be punished for speech and acts that stay theoretically authorized—such a tradition isn't simply reoriented again to constitutionalism, freedom, and public integrity.
The oft-debated query "Is Donald Trump a fascist?" isn't simple to reply. There are definitely fascistic components to him: the subdivision of society into classes of good friend and foe; the boastful virility and the delight in violence; the imaginative and prescient of life as a battle for dominance that just some can win, and that others should lose.
Yet there's additionally one thing incongruous and even absurd about making use of the sinister label of fascist to Donald Trump. He is so pathetically needy, so shamelessly self-interested, so fitful and distracted. Fascism fetishizes hardihood, sacrifice, and battle—ideas not usually related to Trump.
A would-be kleptocrat is best served by spreading cynicism than by deceiving followers.
Perhaps that is the incorrect query. Perhaps the higher query about Trump isn't "What is he?" however "What will he do to us?"
By all early indications, the Trump presidency will corrode public integrity and the rule of regulation—and in addition do untold harm to American international management, the Western alliance, and democratic norms round the world. The harm has already begun, and it'll not be quickly or simply undone. Yet precisely how a lot harm is allowed to be achieved is an open query—the most vital near-term query in American politics. It can be an intensely private one, for its reply shall be decided by the reply to a different query: What will you do? And you? And you?
Of course we wish to imagine that the whole lot will prove all proper. In this occasion, nevertheless, that pretty and customary American assumption itself qualifies as one in all the most severe impediments to the whole lot turning out all proper. If the story ends with out an excessive amount of hurt to the republic, it gained't be as a result of the risks had been imagined, however as a result of residents resisted.
The responsibility to withstand ought to weigh most closely upon these of us who—due to ideology or partisan affiliation or another cause—are most predisposed to favor President Trump and his agenda. The years forward shall be years of temptation in addition to hazard: temptation to grab a uncommon political alternative to cram by means of an agenda that the American majority would usually reject. Who is aware of when that likelihood will recur?
A constitutional regime is based upon the shared perception that the most elementary dedication of the political system is to the guidelines. The guidelines matter greater than the outcomes. It's as a result of the guidelines matter most that Hillary Clinton conceded the presidency to Trump regardless of successful thousands and thousands extra votes. It's as a result of the guidelines matter most that the big state of California will settle for the supremacy of a federal authorities that its individuals rejected by an virtually two-to-one margin.
Perhaps the phrases of a founding father of contemporary conservatism, Barry Goldwater, supply steering. "If I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents' 'interests,' " Goldwater wrote in The Conscience of a Conservative, "I shall reply that I was informed their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can." These phrases ought to be stored in thoughts by these conservatives who assume a tax lower or health-care reform a ample reward for enabling the gradual rot of constitutional authorities.
Many of the worst and most subversive issues Trump will do shall be extremely widespread. Voters preferred the threats and incentives that stored Carrier manufacturing jobs in Indiana. Since 1789, the wisest American leaders have invested nice ingenuity in creating establishments to guard the citizens from its momentary impulses towards arbitrary motion: the courts, the skilled officer corps of the armed forces, the civil service, the Federal Reserve—and undergirding all of it, the ensures of the Constitution and particularly the Bill of Rights. More than any president in U.S. historical past since at the very least the time of Andrew Jackson, Donald Trump seeks to subvert these establishments.
Trump and his group depend on one factor above all others: public indifference. "I think people don't care," he stated in September when requested whether or not voters wished him to launch his tax returns. "Nobody cares," he reiterated to 60 Minutes in November. Conflicts of curiosity with overseas investments? Trump tweeted on November 21 that he didn't imagine voters cared about that both: "Prior to the election it was well known that I have interests in properties all over the world. Only the crooked media makes this a big deal!"
What occurs in the subsequent 4 years will rely closely on whether or not Trump is true or incorrect about how little Americans care about their democracy and the habits and conventions that maintain it. If they shock him, they'll restrain him.
Public opinion, public scrutiny, and public stress nonetheless matter enormously in the U.S. political system. In January, an surprising surge of voter outrage thwarted plans to neutralize the unbiased House ethics workplace. That type of protection will have to be replicated many occasions. Elsewhere in this situation, Jonathan Rauch describes a few of the networks of protection that Americans are creating.
Get into the behavior of telephoning your senators and House member at their native places of work, particularly in case you dwell in a crimson state. Press your senators to make sure that prosecutors and judges are chosen for his or her independence—and that their independence is protected. Support legal guidelines to require the Treasury to launch presidential tax returns if the president fails to take action voluntarily. Urge new legal guidelines to make clear that the Emoluments Clause applies to the president's speedy household, and that it refers not merely to direct presents from governments however to funds from government-affiliated enterprises as effectively. Demand an unbiased investigation by certified professionals of the position of overseas intelligence companies in the 2016 election—and the contacts, if any, between these companies and American residents. Express your help and sympathy for journalists attacked by social-media trolls, particularly girls in journalism, so usually the most popular targets. Honor civil servants who're fired or pressured to resign as a result of they defied improper orders. Keep shut look ahead to indicators of the rise of a tradition of official impunity, in which mates and supporters of power-holders are allowed to flout guidelines that bind everybody else.
Those residents who fantasize about defying tyranny from inside fortified compounds have by no means understood how liberty is definitely threatened in a contemporary bureaucratic state: not by diktat and violence, however by the gradual, demoralizing strategy of corruption and deceit. And the method that liberty have to be defended isn't with beginner firearms, however with an unwearying insistence upon the honesty, integrity, and professionalism of American establishments and people who lead them. We live by means of the most harmful problem to the free authorities of the United States that anybody alive has encountered. What occurs subsequent is as much as you and me. Don't be afraid. This second of hazard will also be your best hour as a citizen and an American.
David Frum is a workers author at The Atlantic and the writer of Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic. In 2001 and 2002, he was a speechwriter for President George W. Bush.
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Our minister, the Reverend Frieda Gillespie, now has her own Twitter feed. If you'd like to be one of her "followers" (that's Twitter terminology, not religious dogmatism), you can sign up for a free Twitter account.
Even if you don't want to become a Twitter member, you can read Reverend Frieda's tweets here.


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Home > Destinations > US & Canada > Canada > British Columbia > Winter at Whistler: Skiing in British Columbia
Winter at Whistler: Skiing in British Columbia
By Claudia Carbone //Leave a Comment
Editor's Note: Whistler Resort is open, however, please follow all current safety guidelines for travel. Staying safe at Whistler in 2021 means wearing a face covering, adhering to physical distancing, following chairlift and gondola grouping rules, and having reservations. Visit whistler.com/covid for up-to-date information. We share places, products and activities we recommend. If you make a purchase using a link on our site, we may earn a commission.
"Have a good ski!" they say in Canada as you head for the slopes. If you're in Whistler, it's hard not to.
Two behemoth mountains—Whistler and Blackcomb— joined at the hip by a European-style village comprise this mega-resort in British Columbia, site of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
Peering over the couloir. Photo by Tourism Whistler – Blake Jorgenson
Whistler can be described in superlatives: second greatest vertical rise in North America (one mile), most skiable acres on the continent (8,171—by comparison Vail is 5,289)); largest lift capacity (69,939 skiers per hour on 36 lifts), longest ski season in Canada (November-May with glacier skiing in June and July); best resort in North America (consistently voted on each year); and the steepest chute I've ever skied (Blackcomb's Couloir Extreme). More on that later.
Add 200 trails, three glaciers, 16 alpine bowls, two seven-mile runs, 18 mountain restaurants and a partridge in a pear tree. (Actually, it's a whistling marmot in a tree that gave Whistler its name.)
Peak 2 Peak Gondola
But the most impressive stats at Whistler are reserved for the record-breaking Peak 2 Peak Gondola that debuted in 2008. Picture two mountaintops separated by a huge valley cut in half by a creek.
Then imagine a cable spanning the distance from peak to peak. The Peak 2 Peak crosses the longest unsupported span of 3,024 kilometers; it's the highest lift of its kind; and combined with the rest of the lifts, it makes the longest continuous lift system in the world—round trip from Whistler Village to the Blackcomb base up and over the mountains.
I rode it soon after it launched, and after being "air born," my initial queasiness subsided as I enjoyed the experience of quietly floating like a hot air balloon with a bird's eye view of Fitzsimmons Creek and the dense tall treetops.
A few of the 28 cars have glass bottoms for that stunning over-the-top view. Before the gondola's installation, we would ski one mountain one day and the other the next.
Now you can get from mountain to mountain in 11 minutes!
The Peak 2 Peak Gondola soars high above the treetops. Photo by Destination BC – Andrew Strain
Skiing and Riding
Despite their massive size and high-alpine grandeur, these mountains inspire rather than intimidate. Sure, their legendary above-treeline drop-offs demand precise technical skiing. But more than half the overall terrain offers fabulous beginner and intermediate skiing that starts from the highest lifts.
There's no better place to be on a good day than Jersey Cream on Blackcomb or Harmony Ridge on Whistler Mountain. The best ski experience is after the early morning Fresh Tracks Breakfast at mid-mountain Roundhouse Lodge on Whistler Mountain. Hit the upper slopes before the masses for untracked skiing. Unfortunately, this year Fresh Tracks has been canceled due to COVID.
About that couloir on Blackomb… I skied it totally by accident. That day my ski buddy and I got off the Peak Express Chair onto a traverse where we came across a group of skiers waiting to drop into what I thought was just a nice bowl. So I turned left and slipped in, thinking he would follow me. It turned out to be more than a bowl. It was the infamous "Sudan Couloir," 2,500 vertical feet of constant 42-degree pitches!
It's always on the list of top 10 bad-ass runs in North America. It was steep, yes, but the snow was good and I took my time connecting short radius turns to the bottom. I looked for my friend, waited and waited.
He eventually found me from a blue run that joined at the bottom. "Do you know what you just skied," he said. "I just couldn't make that first turn," he later admitted.
Had I known, I probably wouldn't have either. But that day—a good day—the snow was perfect and my head was in a good place, so maybe…
Whistler Powder. Photo by Destination Canada – Grant Gunderson
"Good day" are key words here. Weather at Whistler can be dicey, with Pacific Northwest coastal patterns being the rule.
Altitude is low by Rocky Mountain standards—the highest lift is at 7,494 feet—and though an average 467 inches of snow falls each year, it can settle hard and icy.
My best days have been in late March, when the snow had a cornstarch consistency perfect for holding an edge. The sky was clear and blue, the weather warm and sunny.
The worst days were early winter when thick clouds masked the mountains and rain pocked the surface into a steel plate. But the glaciers are always skiable, with consistent refrigeration keeping the snow at a perfect temperature. If Whistler Resort were in the high Rockies, it would be number one in every way.
Whistler Plaza. Photo by Scandinave Spa – Justa Jeskova
Whistler Village
The proximity of the European-style pedestrian village to the two mountains lends a small ski-area convenience to the base.
The layout renders an intimate atmosphere, disguising the huge number of lodging places, shops, restaurants, pubs, and spas that make up Whistler Resort.
Though there are plenty of shops around Whistler Village, you'll want to be at least a little prepared for the winter temperatures before you go. Grab a winter jacket and some durable snow gloves from Colombia and you'll be ready to hit the town. Check out their entire selection of snow and winter wear here.
From heli-skiing to lively après ski and every winter activity in between, Whistler delivers a complete winter vacation package wrapped up with that homey Canadian hospitality and unforgettable cuisine.
Aerial view at dusk of the Harmony Chair Lift with views of Black Tusk. Photo by Destination BC – Randy Lincks
If You Go to Whistler
If you're not Canadian, you must have a passport to enter Canada.
Whistler Resort is a 2.5-hour drive on the breathtaking Sea-to-Sky Highway from Vancouver's airport. A shuttle service operates between the airport and Whistler. You will not need a car once you get to Whistler Village.
The most unusual activity apart from snow sports is a float down the Squamish River to Brackendale, 30 minutes south of Whistler and home of the world's largest concentration of bald eagles. The eagle count reaches its peak in January when they swoop down on spawning salmon in the river. brackendaleeagles.com
Check tourismwhistler.com for transportation, lodging, etc. and whistler.com for mountain information.
Visit TripAdvisor before you go for some tips, transportation routes and other hotel information here.
Author's Bio: Claudia Carbone is an award-winning travel writer and member of the Society of American Travel Writers, North American Travel Journalists Assoc. and Denver Woman's Press Club. Currently, her work is published in The Denver Post, Colorado Expression Magazine, London Sunday Telegraph's Hotelegraph, GoWorldTravel.com, RealFoodTraveler.com, MtnTown Magazine and The Villager Newspaper. Her blog Sleepin' Around covers any place you can sleep on vacation.
Filed Under: Adventure Travel, Alpine, British Columbia, Canada, Family travel, World Travel Tagged With: Blackcomb Mountain, Canada Travel, skiing, snow sports, Whistler, Whistler Village, Winter in Whistler
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Go World Travel Magazine is a digital magazine for world travelers. Each week, we bring you new travel videos, articles and travel tips on destinations in more than 90 countries.
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All companies understand the importance of improving employee performance, but there are also plenty of variations in how this process is carried out. Some organizations think that improving employee performance is a simple matter of imposing quotas or maintaining a certain level of productivity. Others simply equate employee performance with the amount of income generated per personnel, or the amount of expenses avoided during a given period. Although these perspectives are correct, they only describe the results and consequences of improving personnel performance, and not their actual features.
Instead, employee performance should be defined as the level of employee training and personnel engagement that an organization offers to its personnel. This engagement is important because it affects all aspects of employee performance, including costs, productivity and efficiency.
Furthermore, employee performance can also be considered as the ultimate result of your organization's employee development goals, and such goals reflect the level of commitment that your organization is willing to invest on each of its personnel. So in thinking about employee performance, it's important to always focus on the bigger picture, and here are a few things to help you do just that.
In order to fully appreciate the importance of improving employee performance, it's important to look at certain facts. Although many organizations are looking for ways on how to improve employee performance, not all of them are aware of the actual facts. So to put things into perspective, here's some information that you should consider.
According a study conducted by the Harvard Business Review, around 71% of their respondents cite "high level of employee engagement" as being crucial to their success. Furthermore, around 42% of companies that put a "high priority" on employee engagement communicate their business goals via training and leadership development. What these statistics mean is that employee performance development is often intertwined with employee engagment and training, which means that both are essential for improving personnel productivity.
In addition to improving employee performance through training and employee engagements, it's also important to point out that performance optimization can also be carried out through incentive programs, and here are a few facts about such programs.
– Around 86% of organizations have rewards or recognition programs.
– Performance incentives are estimated to be worth around $100 billion.
– Non-cash incentives are worth around $46 billion.
– 70% of companies which offer rewards and recognition incentives to their personnel offer 3 to 6 different performance reward programs to their personnel.
So as you can see, there are many ways to improve employee performance. Aside from employee training, there are also plenty of reward schemes that your organization can use to increase personnel productivity.
Whether it's entry level employees training for specific entry level tasks or incentivizing core personnel to learn new business strategies, the final goal is always the same: Better Employee Performance.
Better employee performance leads to optimal lower costs per personnel as well as higher levels of productivity. Furthermore, better performance also corresponds to increased employee loyalty, which itself is valuable to any organization's long term interests. So with regards to improving employee performance, it's always important to remember that their results can have far reaching effects on any company.


Created by cgeyer on 30 June, 2011. Last updated on 01 July, 2011.
The following presentation from OASIS was delivered by John Sabo, Director Global Government Relations - CA Technologies, chair of the IDtrust Steering Committee, at the OECD High Level Meeting, in Paris, 28-29 June 2011.
On behalf of CA Technologies and representing the OASIS standards organization and the Internet Technical Advisory Committee, it is an honor to have the opportunity to discuss data privacy in an open Internet and to propose a path forward to achieve greater privacy protections and online trust.
Data and information are what the open Internet exists to deliver. They form the core of economic development, societal transformation, innovation, consumer value and global dialogue. And so personal information and personally-identifiable information are no longer confined and stove-piped – they are integral to value-added and inter-connected online services, a trend which will only accelerate in Internet-dependent electronic health information systems, smart grid infrastructures, federated identity management systems, new consumer applications, and networked devices - the Internet of Things.
Entirely new forms of personal information are also generated as a by-product of Internet connectivity and the convergence of individual identities, devices, location, time, data flows among systems, applications and data stores. The real-time interaction of individuals with Internet-connected systems continually creates new aggregations of personal information, new inferences about individuals, and new privacy risks. The global connectivity of the Internet also means that the policies which define the rights and responsibilities associated with the collection, use, communication, and destruction of PI are likewise no longer isolated and no longer static. The policies governing PI, whether derived from laws, regulations or individual user preferences, now must interact in a web as complex as the data itself. And so data and policy have merged in a way never experienced before the advent of the Internet.
A further reality is that the expectations of individuals (their personal policies and requirements) about how their personal information should be collected, communicated, used and protected are not at all uniform and are extremely context-dependent. These issues are compounded as businesses and governments rapidly deploy cloud computing services to achieve significant cost and economic benefits.
These realities - and the absence of globally harmonized data privacy laws, regulations and policies that align with today's Internet-connected world - mean that we face a condition in which policy entropy – disorder - compromises our ability to design and deliver Internet-scale technologies that can support the context-driven, privacy expectations of consumers and citizens over lengthy time periods and across multiple systems and applications, and that can enable large-scale trusted systems having predictable behaviors and meaningful risk management controls.
Therefore, our challenge is not fundamentally about technology. Industry has demonstrated that IT systems, software and Internet technologies are capable of managing complex rule sets, data flows and contextual policy conditions. Our challenge is to understand the nexus between privacy policies and technology and to harness that understanding to design and implement interoperable, trusted, operational privacy systems that can work at Internet scale. To accomplish this, we need increased understanding and deeper collaboration among policy communities and technology communities.
I believe that a path is available to support this vital collaborative model. That path is through the increased use of international standards development organizations and consortia. We see this happening more often today. For example, ISO/IEC is developing three major privacy standards. In OASIS, the Cross-Enterprise Security and Privacy Authorization standard supports the exchange of privacy policies, consent directives, and authorizations among healthcare organizations; the Open Reputation Management System Committee, is developing reputation mechanisms for Internet-based based communities and for validating the trustworthiness of online services; and the Privacy Management Reference Model Committee, which I co-chair, is developing a standard to enable operational privacy management in complex online systems and infrastructures.
These standards committees and others have actively engaged governments to ensure that public policies are considered in the privacy standards development process. And we are seeing similar outreach from governments in public policy initiatives - in the EU consultation supporting the revision of the data protection directive and the outreach by the United States government as part of its National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace.
In closing, I believe that the policy entropy and lack of Internet-scale, interoperable data privacy standards can be addressed. But progress will require greater collaboration among academic, industry, government and individual experts using the well-established structures and processes present in recognized standards organizations such as ISO/IEC, ITU-T, OASIS, IETF, W3C, ETSI and other bodies.
foundation for metrics-driven compliance and self-regulation, instill consumer and user trust, and earn the confidence of governments, business, and other institutions that Internet privacy risks are manageable.


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est le dixième album studio de Ghostface Killah, sorti le .

Il s'agit d'un album-concept accompagné d'un comics éponyme. L'opus est entièrement produit par Adrian Younge, tandis que RZA en est le producteur exécutif.

Un remix officiel, 12 Reasons to Die: The Brown Tape, a été publié par Apollo Brown le .

HipHopDX a classé Twelve Reasons to Die parmi les « 25 meilleurs albums de l'année 2013 » et le magazine The Source  à la dixième place des « 10 meilleurs albums de 2013 ».

Liste des titres

Notes et références

Album de Ghostface Killah
Album musical sorti en 2013
Album produit par RZA
Album-concept

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5/8/2019 - RB&R is a Restaurant Music Venue located in the St Andrews area it features great food and music ole school adult atmosphere. Come and enjoy Duo Jazz – Wednesdays, Traditional Jazz – Thursdays, Solo Jazz – Fridays, Funk – Saturdays, and Fusion – Sundays.
Time: 8 p.m. - 11 p.m. Costs: Call or check Facebook page for costs.


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Q: problem merging jupyter notebooks with nbdime I am trying to merge a branch testing with an edited version of a jupyter notebook into my master branch with another version of the same notebook. I have edited the files in both branches in the same line respectively. So I would expect a merge conflict.
That is what the file on master branch looks like:

That is what the file on testing branch looks like:

git checkout master and then git merge testing is telling me, there is a merge conflict and I need to resolve it on my own - ok ,fine.git also tells me that I am in a state of merging, so the next step would be to open the mentioned file on my master branch. And there I would expect to see the conflict. However, I just see the normal Notebook from the master branch. So I am not even able to resolve the conflict.
I would expect to see something like this (from this video):

git diff however works as expected and shows me the following diff:

So what is wrong with my git/nbdime? Why can't I properly merge jupyter Notebooks? Any ideas?
I also have another question describing how I have set up nbdime and git respectively (because I am wondering why I can't use the nbdime commands in bash).

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Jeff Pankoff Profile
Delivered October 1st, 2019. Contributors: Petu and
Early FindingsJeff Pankoff Profile
Jeff Pankoff's professional background includes a long career spanning over two decades at Jostens, with skills in selling and developing others which he currently does at Sandlers Training as an owner.
JEFF PANKOFF
Jeff Pankoff's past job experience includes being a sales representative at Jostens from April 1994 until October 1997.
He then became the Regional Sales Manager at the same company, which was a title he held from October 1997 until May 2000.
Jeff Pankoff was also the Area Sales Manager of Jostens from May 2000 until January 2008.
He then rose to the position of Area Sales Manager and Cross-Functional Liaison at Jostens and worked in that role from January 2008 until February 2009.
Additionally, Pankoff served as the Director of Sales Operations while at Jostens, which he held from February 2009 until March 2011.
Jeff Pankoff then became the Director of Enterprise Sales Strategy at Jostens from November 2012 until March 2013.
Currently, Pankoff acts as the Owner and President of Sandler Training (NorthStar Performance Partners, LLC) and has been in that role from March 2013 to today.
Jeff Pankoff is professionally trained in speech communications, for which he acquired a B.A. Degree from Miami University (Oxford, OH).
Also, he is skilled in "selling and developing others", a skill set which he currently uses effectively as a Sandler business owner.
Jeff Pankoff is also skilled in training sales managers and representatives and producing training materials for numerous areas of business. He developed these skill sets over the years during his lengthy career in sales and management.
Jeff Pankoff is skilled in industrial knowledge, as well as account management, competitive analysis, forecasting, pricing, and process improvement.
Finally, Pankoff is skilled in the knowledge and development of curriculum for sales training, which he utilizes at Sandler's Training.
Jeff Pankoff has a personal interest in coaching and training in sports such as football, youth hockey, and baseball.
He is a follower of Digineer, a management and technology consulting firm and software development company, whose activities he follows on LinkedIn.
Jeff Pankoff is also a follower of mining and metal firm TriAlco Inc., a non-profit management organization known as Eden Praire Chamber of Commerce, and MacKeigan Marketing & Communications, which is a marketing and advertising agency.
Jeff Pankoff's LinkedIn profile
Jeff Pankoff | Sandler Training in Minneapolis, MN
salespro.sandler.com
Sandler Franchising: Jeff Pankoff


PILZONE, Italy — It was a long-held dream, but finally, this week, the conceptual artist Christo walked on water.
On Thursday, he tried out his latest project, "The Floating Piers," a walkway stretching three kilometers, or nearly two miles, that connects two small islands in Lake Iseo, in Italy's Lombardy region, to each other and to the mainland.
See the full NYT article.
The communal bathroom is notably one of the smallest 'public' spaces, while at the same time being confined and private. sou fujimoto took on the challenge of designing a toilet that while still being closed, offered an openness in the context of its site–positioned next to itabu station that runs along the north and south in ichihara-city, chiba, an area that is known for its cherry blossoms.
it's been 40 years since new york has been planning a memorial park for 32nd president franklin D. roosevelt on the east end of roosevelt island. originally designed by louis kahn in 1974, new york's almost bankrupt economy put the project on hold until the release of the documentary 'my architect' when enough support was fostered to fund the completion of the project carried out by local firm mitchell giurgola architects.


The trade deadline has passed! The Kings made some unexpected moves, though one of them we all should have predicted. Meanwhile, Jonathan Quick has returned and is already hilariously confusing the new guys on the team.


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Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency Bundle
2022 Cryptocurrency: Down the Rabbit Hole We Go
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Originally presented at the 2022 Annual Family Law Conference, Aug. 5-6, 2022.
Cryptocurrency continues to steadily worm its way into our economy. In just a few years, it went from being mocked as a speculative joke to being embraced by all of the world's largest and most respected financial institutions. As a still-new asset class, most people remain unfamiliar with what it is, how it works, and how it can be used to conceal assets in a divorce. This seminar will NOT be technical in nature, but rather will educate about the basics of cryptocurrency and the many ways it is, can, and will be involved in our courtrooms.
Speaker: Douglas C. Fredrick, Law Office of Doug Fredrick, LLC, Springfield
This program is part of a special program pricing series. The pricing for this series is variable, and will automatically adjust when you purchase qualifying programs HERE.
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We maintain a C-2 Insulation license through the Contractors State License Board.
GARVEY ROOFING INC. will remove your old insulation and replace with 16" of Insulsafe™ blow-in fiberglass insulation from CertainTeed.
GARVEY ROOFING INC. also can install a Solar Roof to save you energy and costs.
There is no better time than now to "clean the attic". Insulation problems can be caused by pest damage and mold may be caused by poor attic ventilation or leaks. Many homes experience a not-so-fresh smell which is often caused by old insulation called cellulose. This material consists of recycled newspapers initially treated in chemicals to prevent pests and flammability. After a time, this material begins to smell, well, old. This can cause an odor throughout the home.
GARVEY ROOFING INC. will safely vacuum your old attic insulation–and anything else that resides in your attic, including animals and their remains.


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Eldin Jakupovic
Cardiff City Interested In Leicester City's Defensive Outcast: Should Warnock Sign Him?
Ayush Chaurasia - May 13, 2018
Cardiff city, who recently secured their promotion in the Premier League, are on the path to sign Leicester City's goalkeeper Eldin Jakupovic. The 33-year-old stopper has just played two games for the Foxes this season in all competitions and...
Middlesbrough Interested In Snapping Up This Leicester City Defensive Star: Good Move For All Parties?
Leicester City goalkeeper Eldin Jakupovic could be moving away from the club in the summer. A whole host of clubs including Derby County, Middlesbrough and West Brom are interested in signing the player. He joined the Foxes last season...
Leicester City Eye Experienced Defensive Star From Hull City: A Shrewd Addition At The King Power?
Abhishek Majumdar - July 17, 2017
Hull City are looking to let go of a number of players in the current transfer market, with the Tigers having slipped down into the second tier for the next season. They have already lost four players in the...
Leicester City Keen To Land This Hull City Custodian: Is He The Right Man For The Foxes?
Soham Dwibedi - July 13, 2017
Leicester City are looking into the prospect of buying Hull City's 32-year-old goalkeeper Eldin Jakupovic as cover for Kasper Schmeichel. The Tigers have rejected an initial £2m bid for the keeper and insist Jakupovic is only available at the...


True Blood is my current laundry-time watching, even though it's even sillier than I'd thought possible. A few days ago Iz (whose last day of school ever was today, *sob*) and I recently talked about the infinite directions True Blood silliness takes, and our discussion took an interesting tangent when she asked me what aspects of being a vampire might complicate being autistic. So I asked friends what they thought. And the discussion was so ... delicious (like, Fae blood delicious) that I just have to share some of it here (with permission of the discussants). Feel free to join the conversation!
What Are Some Ways Being An Autistic Vampire Could Be, Well, Complicated?
Maf Vosburgh: [Leo's] green straws would come in handy.
LARP: unless you have certain powers, food literally turns to ash in your mouth.
Extra sensory stuff. So many extra sensory stuff. Plus aura reading stuff.
Matt Carey: I think of the hungry tiger of Oz. Too nice too eat others. What about the hungry vampire of Aus? A sensory aversion to the texture or taste of blood?
Matt Carey: How about the difficulty of using hypnotic eyes when you don't like to make eye contact?
Emily Paige Ballou:Also an autistic vampire might also have a very rigid moral code which would make the whole biting people thing problematic. You might have to come up with some kind of consensual blood-sharing agreement.
Shannon Des Roches Rosa: This was Iz's concern.
...and the probability of being able to find those people in some of the darker corners of the internet.
Shannon Des Roches Rosa: Well, she'll probably read this thread. But I'm guessing she'd find it interesting, from an intellectual perspective.
Corina Lynn Becker: Yeeeeeeeaaaaah, I'm pretty sure I LARP with some of those people ... nice people, but I'm not going near some of their conversations.
Emily Paige Ballou to Christine Langager: That book would've been better that way. wink emoticon.
Rory Patton: Their moral code may well include having the right to bite others because their own self preservation is more important and besides some people deserve to get bitten (I have a list).
Emily Paige Ballou: Vampires are supposed to be very seductive, but we tend to be bad at flirting.
Jessica Banks: I have major food texture issues, and the thought of having to drink something as thick as blood makes me gag. Also, I'm not a champion sleeper, but I think I could dig that dead from dawn to dusk thing.
Sunday Stilwell: My two vampires would probably love sleeping in a coffin ... all that tight, deep pressure in an enclosed space with cushy pillows.
Maf Vosburgh: Leo could keep the same catch-phrase, "Can I have a bite?".
Ruti Regan: My thought is: this is a question for Tumblr.
Zoe Cannon: An autistic vampire who has trouble with interaction might have trouble luring victims.
Zoe Cannon: A long-lived vampire might infodump about the previous eras they've lived through, and correct errors in historical fiction/movies/nonfiction.
Emily Paige Ballou: ...and thus be in constant danger of giving away their secret.
Corina Lynn Becker: or just be that really really really really really obnoxious history major.
Steve Silberman: In-depth research on the varietal nuances of various blood types.
Elizabeth Noemie Bartmess: Difficulty navigating vampire status hierarchies.
Zoe Cannon: A vampire with a special interest in vampirism trying not to talk about it too much because it might look suspicious.
Elizabeth Noemie Bartmess: Difficulty adjusting to fashion trends + longer life -> clothing decades/centuries out of date.
Zoe Cannon: A vampire with taste sensitivities who can only stand to drink certain blood types.
Emily Paige Ballou: Oh my god, there are all kinds of immunological factors that probably affect the way blood tastes to a hypersensitive autistic vampire.
Alex Forshaw: Unconventional sleep pattern, not a "morning person".
Kevix Mark: can there be a Buffy The Vampire Slayer reimagining with Autistic vampires?
Matt Carey: Could a vampire have a pet bat and call it Squawkers McGaw?
Corina Lynn Becker: if you're a vampire with a sire and other vampires, there is often some resemblance of vampire society, which means a whole 'nother set of social rules and rituals (literal and not) to learn, with other members from all sorts of time periods, soooooooooo democracy not always a thing.
Seymour Rosa: Bats are naturals at flappause. So there's that.
I am in denial about Iz and her cousin Danielle graduating from high school next week. And both going to colleges that, while still in this time zone, are also not very close by.
Our girl has chosen to spend her last official summer at home working a lot, and also going to a few concerts. Pretty sure that's what I did, the summer before I went to UCLA. I may have also gone to the beach a lot, which was an option in the sunny SoCal of my youth, but not so much here near San Francisco, where everything coastal is foggy, rocky, shark-ridden, rip tide-beset, or some combination of the four. I suspect she will go hiking instead.
Am writing about beaches as a form of postponing thinking about graduation. I don't understand how the arrival of this milestone happened so quickly. It's addling. It's upsetting. It's too much. Any advice on handling this transition (for me, not her) would be welcomed.
We also have to think what to do about Iz's room: Turn it back into my office, or go the AirBNB route?


The growth cone at the tip of an extending axon is exquisitely sensitive to repulsive and attractive guidance cues in its environment. These molecules may be diffusible and work from a distance or be bound to a membrane or substrate and work at close range. It is the complex integration of these repulsive and attractive signals that guide the axon to its appropriate target. Axon guidance molecules play critical roles during nervous system development and may regulate the regenerative capacity of neurons during nervous system disease.
R&D Systems offers many research tools to study molecules involved in axon guidance. These include a wide selection of active proteins and antibodies designed for the ligands and receptors of several protein families including Netrins, Semaphorins, Ephrins, RGMs, Slits, BMPs, Wnts, and more.


Watching the Tour de France can be tricky if you live in the United States. But thanks to the boost in mainstream popularity Lance Armstrong brought the sport, the TV options are way better than they were 20 years ago. And when you include all the streaming options and apps now available, fans can now consume the race on almost any type of media—if you're willing to put in a little work, or spend some money.
Cable network giant NBC will again broadcast four to five hours of live coverage every stage on its NBC Sports channel, which is available in about 80 million US homes (often as part of a premium cable subscription). The broadcast typically picks up about two hours into the stage, so you miss the start, but the network's production quality is good—as long as you can endure another year of commentators Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen. NBC Sports will also air a slightly compressed three-hour broadcast of each stage in primetime, starting at 8 p.m. ET each night.
Subscribers to NBC Sports can watch replays of each stage online, which is a nice option if you have to miss the stage while you're at work and don't have a DVR. For all the cord-cutters, NBC offers a live-streaming service that is available for desktop and mobile devices. The $29.99 desktop package streams in HD video and allows you to pause, rewind, or view stages in slow motion. It comes with tons of extra content, too, including highlight reels, rider interviews, race analysis, and a function that allows you to track riders' progress in real time. You can also gain access for individual stages for $4.99. The mobile app has only the live stream and costs $19.99.
Saving for a new bike and don't want to spend cash on cable or streaming services? You can pirate a connection with some careful Internet geekery. Several VPN providers allow you to access free European Tour streams, but there are downsides (and potential legal risks). The CyclingFans website lists many of the European feeds, but the quality can be shoddy, announcers might be unintelligible, pop-up adds can be onerous, and the notoriously fickle streams can cut out at the most crucial moments of the race. They are a good free option, but certainly not the best option.


With Winter coming soon, it's about time we start to take comfort in the home seriously. A cosy home is really all we need to feel warm, comfortable and happy in our homes. If you don't plan to do much travelling this year over the winter, then here are a couple of suggestions to keep both your home and your body nice and toasty throughout the chilly weather.
First thing's first, get in touch with professionals like Farnen & Dermer heating system installation and make sure your heating is working. The last thing you want is a chilly home with no central heating. No amount of blankets and clothing will save you from a chilly winter, so focus on this as a priority!
Hot chocolate, tea, coffee and even chicken soup can be perfect for the winter. The easier it is to make, the better. Instant varieties are perfectly acceptable, but nothing beats a homemade hot chocolate with marshmallows after tasty winter meal. Staying warm in the cold season means keeping your body warm, which is why drinking something hot is so effective.
Whether it's simple blankets or sleeved blankets, make sure you buy a couple extra and keep them in baskets close to heat sources to keep them nice and warm. Then when you're feeling cold, simply reach into the basket, grab a blanket, and wrap yourself up for a quick and comfortable boost of heat.
The exterior of your home is also important during the Winter season. Make sure you check around the exterior of your home to seal up any drafts and patch up holes where rodents can get in. The warmer your home is, the more attractive it is for pests.
A comforting family activity to have during the holiday season is to play a board game together. Gather around the fire with a board game on the carpet and you'll have many hours of enjoyable fun. Buy several board games if you want some variety and you'll be pretty much set for entertainment over a couple of weeks.
If your home has a fireplace, make use of it. Clear out the chimney before you use it, make sure the area around the fireplace is cleared out so the flames don't burn anything and start heating it up. Fireplaces give off a wonderfully cosy and comfortable feeling, so don't neglect them if you have one in your home that's being unused.
Finally, bed covers. Bedtime can get fairly chilly if you don't thicken up those bed covers. Throwing on an extra blanket or two can work, but using thicker bed sheets is usually the better answer, and you can always swap them out when it starts to get warm again and keep them for next year.