Democrats in Congress will demand to know more about those conversations now, and especially what Mr. Trump knew of them. But that may not even be the administration’s biggest headache. The issue that has always been looming just behind the Flynn controversy is the more explosive question of whether there were covert contacts between the Trump team and Russian representatives in an attempt to influence the presidential campaign.
The inquiry can intensify in several ways in the weeks ahead. Democrats are pressing for a joint House-Senate intelligence committee inquiry, or the formation of a select committee specifically charged with investigating the question of Russian interference in the election.
.. If Republicans balk at going those routes—and signals so far suggest they would—then Democrats will try to increase pressure publicly. In that effort, they may find friends in the intelligence community. It’s clear that the president has made enemies within the intelligence world, who appear willing to leak what they are finding on the Russia connection if there isn’t an official route by which it can surface.
.. There are multiple power centers within the White House, but it may be that Mr. Pence will emerge from the Flynn episode as a particularly important one. Mr. Pence seemed irritated enough at being misled by Mr. Flynn to have acted on the irritation, rather than letting it pass.
.. Mr. Pence has always had the potential to emerge as a dominant player
.. That hasn’t been the case so far with Mr. Priebus, in part because Mr. Trump reportedly has only recently indicated that he wants him to exert that kind of control.
How ‘Islands of Honesty’ Can Crush a System of Corruption
experts say, the recent scandals may in fact be cautiously good news. They show that prosecutors and other institutions have managed to break free of those systems and hold their leaders to account — with overwhelming public support for that accountability when they do.
.. And the benefits of staying honest decline, because everybody is cutting in front of you in line to see the doctor, or winning the contracts that you might have had a decent chance of getting.”
.. A new equilibrium will take hold — one that favors dishonest dealings.
That kind of corrupt equilibrium is the background to South Korea’s current scandal.
.. Unmarried and childless, she highlighted her lack of close family as an asset to her presidency because so many previous scandals had involved steering assets to children or spouses.
.. Once a corrupt equilibrium is in place, experts say, it cannot be stopped until public trust in the government’s institutions and leaders is restored. That is why the investigations that have led to scandals in South Korea, Brazil, and elsewhere are so significant.
.. institutions are only strong when you believe in them
.. I don’t want to say that our institutions only exist in our minds, but really that’s true. What is the rule of law except that we ultimately believe that we ought to follow certain rules?”
But in corrupt systems that belief is often missing, because the institutions that are supposed to provide accountability are often weakened through bribery, threats, and other illicit means.
.. In Russia, control over both political power and corruption is concentrated among a small group of politicians and the oligarchs in their inner circle, and no institution or prosecutor has enough power to challenge them.
..
“I call them ‘islands of honesty’” Professor Stefes said. Such investigations are not sufficient on their own to eradicate corruption, he said. “But they certainly can make a difference as soon as they start spreading, especially when they can connect with civil society.”
Orrin Hatch May Prove a Crucial Ally for Donald Trump
Chairman of Senate Finance Committee is set to oversee confirmation of many cabinet nominees and approval of president-elect’s legislative agenda
.. Mr. Hatch was one of the first senators to endorse Mr. Trump for president.. The committee will handle several other priorities for Mr. Trump, including replacing President Barack Obama’s health-care law and overhauling the tax system... Mr. Trump doesn’t have close ties with many members of Congress, so Mr. Hatch has become an important middleman between Mr. Trump and the Senate. A few weeks ago, Mr. Trump tapped Mr. Hatch’s chief of staff, Robert Porter, to assist with his transition process... Mr. Hatch has also forged a close relationship beginning this summer with Reince Priebus, who has been chairman of the Republican National Committee and is Mr. Trump’s incoming chief of staff. Mr. Hatch donated a total of $75,000 from his political-action committee to the RNC and Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign, one of the few senators to do so... Mr. Hatch endorsed Mr. Trump in May, when the nomination was all but sewn up. Still, he was among the first senators to do so... When Mr. Trump suggested a federal judge’s Mexican heritage should disqualify him from overseeing a case involving Trump University, the now defunct real-estate school, Mr. Hatch told the Los Angeles Times: “Be nice to him. He’s a poor first-time candidate.”.. At the summer’s Republican convention, Mr. Hatch sat in the Trump family’s box on occasion.. In October, after the release of a tape of Mr. Trump making lewd comments about groping women, Mr. Hatch was steadfast in his support, though he called Mr. Trump’s comments “offensive and disgusting.”.. Last month, the two had several conversations about potential nominees for secretary of state, including former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Church As Institutional Failure
In short, except for a VERY small core of Catholics I know who are able to separate the men from the institution, none of them are at all willing to believe anymore that the Roman Catholic Church is in any way a special institution with a particular right to dictate morality.
.. I live now in a very Catholic area (Wisconsin) with Catholic family. And the abuse scandals simply undid their faith in the church as an authority.
.. That said, hardly any of people who send their kids to school at our parish go to mass regularly. I’m in my early 30s and so are the other parents in my kids’ classes. It is nothing like I remember being in Catholic school in the 90s, when you saw everybody at mass on Sunday. If anyone does go, it is the mothers and kids. Fathers rarely go to mass.
.. it’s because it is easier (and more entertaining) to avoid Church and a religious life. I love the Catholic mass. It is beautiful, and a representation of Heaven on Earth. But it is not entertaining. It is not ESPN on Sunday morning; it is not a fantasy football app. It is not even a Megachurch with Starbucks and bagels in the lobby. For the poorly formed Catholic, the Mass is boring and repetitive.
.. I am happy my kids’ school focuses on faith formation. There is a whole generation of people who were not properly formed as Catholics (1960s-1990s). They simply do not know about their faith and don’t care.
.. And unlike in Catholicism, those who actively and publicly disagree with LDS teachings often leave the Mormon faith.
Why? Because Mormonism is not a comfortable environment for those who publicly flout its teachings. The same can’t be said in most case for Catholicism.
.. I was communicating with a Catholic parochial school teacher, a theological conservative who is also a father of young children. He is extremely fed up with the indifference and even hostility of Catholic parents. But he is especially fed up with the bishops. He told me that his local bishop is a time-server and bench-warmer who is presiding over the decline of the diocese’s Catholic schools into mediocrity.
.. No, the thing is this: that I cannot bring myself to believe that as a general matter, the hierarchy can be trusted to do the right thing consistently.
.. For us non-monastics, this community increasingly violates old confessional boundaries, discarding barriers sustained by removed intellectual extrapolation in favor of the experiential knowledge born out of praxis.
.. The rise of the Internet, however, has posed serious problems for this model. Increasingly, the person in the pew is receiving their theological and biblical understanding independent of pastoral oversight and guidance, often through a sort of personal ‘research’ akin to that of the Googling anti-vaxxer.
.. Congregants are following people on Twitter and Facebook, reading various blogs, listening to podcasts, watching Christian videos on Youtube, participating in online forums and communities, reading a far wider range of books than they probably would have done in the past, watching Christian TV shows, listening to Christian radio stations, etc., etc.
.. The result has often been a situation—similar to that faced by vaccination programmes—in which pastors and church leaders urgently have to protect the spiritual health of their congregations against false teachings that untrained people have adopted through their independent ‘research’. In such a situation, few things are more important than a strong bond of trust between lay people and those in authority over them, who are responsible for their well-being.
.. Pastors, prominent Christian leaders, and teachers may commonly presume that authority is something that comes with the job position. However, this election is just going to provide further evidence of how profoundly mistaken this assumption actually is. Especially among the up-and-coming generations, the older generation of prominent evangelical leaders has less and less influence. Their widespread support of Trump will just be the final nail in the coffin of their credibility for a large number of younger people. ‘Authority’ counts for little where trust no longer exists. Not only will this mean that their future statements won’t carry weight: they will be actively distrusted. Once again, there is a dangerous situation of unattached trust, ripe for the establishment of counter-communities.
Many people now privilege online bloggers, speakers, and writers over the pastors that have been given particular responsibility for the well-being of their souls. The result is growing competition among Christian gatekeepers, which increasingly positions the individual Christian, less as one fed by particular appointed and spiritually mature local fathers and mothers in the faith, and more as an independent religious consumer, free to pick and choose the voices that they find most agreeable. Sheep with a multitude of competing shepherds aren’t much better off than sheep with no shepherds whatsoever.
.. Everyone appears to be a peer online, which dulls our awareness of the fact that some people have authority over us and others have other forms of authority resulting from privileged knowledge, training, or experience. Everyone is expected to make up their own opinion in such a world, but very few people have the means to make up their minds well.
..
Trump’s argument against vaccines works because people no longer trust the authorities—the governments, the scientists, the medical professionals, etc.—who tell them that they are safe. The biased mainstream media, the liberal elite, lying politicians, activist judges, crony capitalists, politically correct academics, the conspiring government, scientists bought off by big business, hypocritical religious leaders: all are radically corrupt, motivated by self-interest, and radically untrustworthy. In such a situation, people’s realm of trust can become more tribal in character, focusing upon people of their own class, background, friendship groups, family, locality, ethnicity, nationality, religion, etc. and deeply suspicious of and antagonistic towards people who do not belong to those groups. This collapse of trust hasn’t occurred because the general public has suddenly become expert in the science behind vaccinations and discovered the authorities’ claims concerning vaccines to be scientifically inaccurate. The trust that has been lost was never directed primarily at such scientific claims. Rather, it was a trust in the persons and agencies that presented us with them.
.. We have entered a period of radical distrust, and if anybody tells you they know for sure where it’s going, don’t trust them.