Citizen Cartwright

Note to readers

As you know, my goal in this blog is to find and share with you insights that help us better understand what’s happening on this little planet (and beyond). Today, I’ve come across lots of news but no such insights.

So I won’t take your time further, except to say that you are unique in all time and space. Your day ahead is unique, too. I’m cheering for you as you head off into it.

Also in the news

Syria tells residents of eastern Aleppo to leave or ‘be annihilated’

Austria’s far right believes presidency is within reach

Air conditioning company Carrier says it has deal with Trump to keep jobs in Indiana

Trump picks Elaine Chao, longtime GOP establishment fixture, for Transportation secretary

Seema Verma, Trump’s pick to run Medicare and Medicaid, designed Indiana Medicaid program

Treasury nominee Steve Mnuchin, ex-Goldman executive, was Trump's top fundraiser

Trump to name billionaire Wilbur Ross to be Commerce secretary

Trump calls for revoking flag burners’ citizenship, which court rulings forbid

Politico: The new rules for journalists covering Trump

Bloomberg Business News columnist: Real talk on the power of fake news

FDA agrees to new trials for Ecstasy as relief for PTSD sufferers

Researchers: Heart attack risk 8 times higher for smokers younger than 50

Insulin prices skyrocket; American Diabetes Association asks Congress to investigate

Seniors’ difficulty hearing amid background noise may be a brain problem

We’ve never known less about a president-elect’s ideology

So says Harry Enten at the website FiveThirtyEight, who looks at the data and concludes:

If he aligns with his chief strategist Steve Bannon, "Trump could end up leading one of the most extreme administrations ever. Or he could be, as Republican strategist Patrick Ruffini put it, the 'closest thing the Acela corridor ever gets to a No Labels-y' president. If that’s the case, Trump may end up being far more popular than he is right now. More likely, perhaps, is that the Trump administration will look like the Trump transition: an ideological hodgepodge, moderate on some issues and extreme on others, that defies a single label or number.”

Trump likes his underlings to air their views in public

In yet another way, Donald Trump is like nobody else.

The president-elect encourages his aides to publicly express their conflicting views when he’s unsure of what path to take, says The New York Times.

And so outsiders have been wrong, again, in applying what had been the usual standards to the incoming president.

No, senior adviser Kellyanne Conway hadn’t “gone rogue” over the weekend when she excoriated Mitt Romney, a possible Trump pick for secretary of State.

Trump said in a statement emailed Monday evening by his spokeswoman, Hope Hicks: “Kellyanne came to me and asked whether or not she could go public with her thoughts on the matter. I encouraged her to do so. Most importantly she fully acknowledged there is only one person that makes the decision. She has always been a tremendous asset and that will continue.”

It’s not as hard as you think to get a good job later in life

The 55-and-older age group is the only one with a rising labor-force participation rate, even as age discrimination remains a problem for many older job seekers, says The Wall Street Journal.

Workers age 50 or older now are 33 percent of the labor force, up from 25 percent in 2002. And more than 60 percent of workers age 65 or older now have full-time jobs, up from 44 percent in 1995.

Here are five myths about working later in life, and the recent research that dispels them, according to the WSJ.

Also in the news

If Syria’s Assad wins, he’ll face 'economic wasteland' and ongoing low-level insurgency

Scientists record biggest-ever die-off of coral on Australia's Great Barrier Reef

Michigan certifies Trump as winner of the election

ProPublica: There’s no evidence the election was rigged

Trump picks Georgia GOP Rep. Tom Price, a doctor and Obamacare critic, for Health secretary

The controversial legal theory that could get Trump sued over business conflicts

This gene may affect how much you like to drink

And now, the roiling over the recount

President-elect Trump, without evidence, tweeted on Sunday, "In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.”

On Saturday, Clinton’s campaign had said it would participate in a recount effort in Wisconsin — and potentially in similar pushes in Michigan and Pennsylvania — by Jill Stein, who was the Green Party's candidate.

The Clinton campaign said it had seen no “actionable evidence” of vote hacking that might taint the results or otherwise provide new grounds for challenging Trump’s victory. But it suggested it was going along with the recount effort to assure supporters that it was doing everything possible to verify that hacking by Russia or other irregularities hadn't affected the results.

Potential business conflicts for Trump

Trump’s companies have business operations in at least 20 countries, with a particular focus on the developing world, including outposts in India, Indonesia and Uruguay, according to a New York Times analysis of his presidential campaign financial disclosures.

Among the issues:
— Could America’s reaction to events around the world potentially could be shaded, if only slightly, by the Trump family’s financial ties with foreign players?

— Could those connections compromise in some countries ongoing U.S. efforts to criticize the corrupt intermingling of state power with vast business enterprises controlled by the political elite?

— Even if Trump and his family don’t seek special advantages from foreign governments, might officials overseas feel compelled to help the Trump family by, for example, accelerating building permits or pushing more business to one of the new president’s hotels or golf courses?

— Might U.S. diplomats overseas be reluctant to take steps that could frustrate Trump business partners or political allies?

— Who will be responsible for security at the Trump Towers around the world, especially in the Middle East, which terrorism experts say may become targets as symbols of American capitalism built in the name of the president?

— Since the election, Trump’s daughter Ivanka, who is in charge of planning and development of the Trump Organization’s global network of hotels, has joined in conversations with at least three world leaders — of Turkey, Argentina and Japan — having access that could help her expand the brand worldwide.

Some members of Congress — including at least one Republican representative — are calling on Trump to provide more information on his international operations, or perhaps for a congressional inquiry into them.

Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks says, “Vetting of various structures and immediate transfer of the business remains a top priority for both President-elect Trump, his adult children and his executives."

Federal law doesn't prevent Trump from taking actions that could benefit him and his family financially; a president is exempt from most conflict-of-interest laws. But the Constitution, through the emoluments clause, appears to prohibit Trump from taking payments or gifts from a foreign government entity.

Trump aides’ campaigns for the boss’ ear

Kellyanne Conway, Trump's senior adviser and former campaign manager, publicly criticized the possibility of Mitt Romney becoming secretary of state on the morning political-show circuit on Sunday.

Conway said Romney “went out of his way to hurt Donald Trump” during the campaign.

Trump is an avid consumer of television news, and his advisers and allies often use their appearances to send messages to Trump or the Republican establishment, says The Associated Press. Nevertheless, it's rare for Conway and other close aides who speak frequently with Trump in private to be so explicit about their personal opinions in public, AP says.

Conway and incoming White House senior strategist Steve Bannon want ex-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani to get the secretary of state job. The pro-Romney camp includes Vice President-elect Mike Pence and incoming White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, who want Trump to reach out to mainstream Republicans, says Politico.

Breitbart News, which Bannon headed before joining the Trump campaign, is running an item today titled "Thirteen undiplomatic statements by Mitt Romney about Donald Trump.”

Trump, whose private-sector management style — and persona as a TV boss — reflected a penchant for fostering conflict among subordinates, set the stage for the current fight when he appointed Priebus and Bannon to top West Wing posts, virtually ensuring months of wrangling, says Politico.

Insiders and outsiders describe the transition process as “largely inscrutable,” says Politico. Trump's own views are a mystery to even those closest to him, and he has a reputation for changing his mind at a moment's notice, Politico says.

Also in the news

Hardline reformer Francois Fillon wins France's conservative presidential primaries

Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election season, experts say

Trump has been turning away intelligence briefers since his election win

Trump's pick of billionaire Betsy DeVos, school voucher advocate, as education secretary

Trump picks K.T. McFarland for national security post, Donald McGahn for White House counsel

Democrats have a last faint hope to gain a Senate seat in Louisiana’s Foster Campbell

Eli Lilly’s experimental Alzheimer’s drug fails in large clinical trial

Strokes increasingly strike young people even as stroke rates drop in people 55 and older

Fidel Castro, Cuban revolutionary who defied U.S. for nearly half a century, dies at 90