Alabama Senate candidacy may redefine decency

Pity the politician, enmeshed in a sex scandal, who can't decide, should I stay, or should I go?

For the moment, GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama is defiantly holding on. Even as party leaders abandon him after accusations that he molested a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old girl when he was a single man in his 30s, Moore apparently hopes voters will feel otherwise come the Dec. 12 special election.

And why should he not? Voters send confusing signals about how much character matters in a politician. History tells us that men can get away with many forms of sexual transgression and still get elected. Moore may be gambling that he'll ride out the initial scandal storm and be one of the fortunate ones.

Of course, not all political sex scandals are made equal. The accusations about Moore are repulsive: hanging around the Gadsden Mall in Alabama or a local restaurant, meeting teenage girls, and admittedly dating women so young he had to ask their moms' permission. If he stays in the race and is elected, his candidacy would significantly redraw the line of what's acceptable behavior for public figures.

Also, and this is important, Moore has denied abusing the women. In the absence of a criminal or Senate ethics committee investigation, all we have to go on are the women's words against his.

One politician who remained electable, to the surprise of many, was Rep. Mark Sanford, South Carolina's 1st District representative in the U.S. House. Sanford is the former governor of that state who disappeared for a week in 2009, out of contact with his family or security detail, saying he had been hiking the Appalachian Trail. In fact, he had been visiting his Argentine lover. He called her his "soul mate" in the immediate aftermath, divorced his wife of 20 years, was elected to serve in Washington in 2013 and ran unopposed in 2014.

Also there's David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican who spoke to teenagers about abstinence before marriage, until it was disclosed that he had been a client of "D.C. Madam" Deborah Jeane Palfrey. Like Vitter, Moore burnishes "conservative Christian" credentials. Vitter was re-elected, post-scandal, to the U.S. Senate.

Disgraced Congressman Anthony Weiner had a brief shot at a second political life when he ran for New York City mayor in 2013, until a new accuser began speaking about his sexting to the media. Voters elected Bill Clinton president in 1992, after Gennifer Flowers claimed they had had a long-time affair; Clinton denied it. And, of course, voters awarded the highest prize in politics last year to Donald Trump, an admitted playboy, adulterer and accused assaulter.

Following his video about grabbing women's genitals and allegations of sexual harassment, which Trump denies, many in the GOP distanced themselves from him, thinking his chances of winning were hopeless.

Now, many senior Republicans say Moore should drop out of his Senate race. If he stays in, his fate will lie not with them but with Alabama voters. Will they stretch their character requirements to embrace an alleged predator?

Not that long ago, American politicians didn't have a prayer if they were even divorced. In 1980, Ted Kennedy dragged his wife Joan on the presidential campaign trail, even though it meant she would have to respond to embarrassing questions about her battles with alcoholism. Her presence helped tamp down criticism partly stemming from the Chappaquiddick controversy.

Given time, divorce, adultery, hypocrisy and even suspected assault are flaws voters have overlooked. It will be a sad day when and if we enlarge that circle to include molesting adolescents.

My story of sexual harassment is typical #MeToo

The news is awash with stories of powerful men preying on women at work. After settling a woman's lawsuit in January for $32 million - an astounding figure - Bill O'Reilly inked a new four-year employment contract with Fox News.

It seems Fox and others have a profound desire not to heed a victim's story when it might mean losing a revenue-generator like O'Reilly.

Since the recent revelations about film mogul Harvey Weinstein, Amazon Studios' Roy Price and New Orleans chef John Besh, more than 1.7 million women have tweeted #MeToo to say they also have been victims of sexual harassment or assault, many in the workplace. Is this a moment of enlightenment? A final end to harassment? I'm skeptical, but I believe there are ways we can each help to reduce it.

First, a story.

When I was in grad school in Manhattan, I was having trouble with my desktop computer, and the manufacturer sent a technician to my apartment to help. My four roommates were out. When the tech finished, he asked me to kiss him. I refused. I called his office to report him, but the woman on the phone didn't believe me.

Months later, as I was graduating and looking for a job, an editor from my former newspaper called unexpectedly. He said he could get me an internship at a prestigious New York newspaper if I would share a bottle of wine with him. I said I would get back to him about that. Later, getting together with some of my colleagues, male and female, who knew him, I told them what he had said. My story was met with uncomfortable silence.

I accepted an internship, instead, at a large West Coast newspaper, and drove my Mitsubishi Colt across the country, where I rented a room in a home where the owner was looking for a couple of tenants. Within a few days, I woke to the sound of my landlord masturbating outside my bedroom door. I froze, and later called police to report him. As I sat in the cruiser giving my report, it became clear that the police officer was mocking me. I left as soon as was politely possible.

I mentioned this incident to an editor at my paper, and he offered to let me stay at his place. I did, for about two weeks. There were just the two of us in the house, and I was wary. But he didn't try anything, and I was grateful. His kindness allowed me to get on my feet and spend another five years working for that newspaper.

Later, when I mentioned my story to another intern, she said I had been stupid to rent that first room. Perhaps.

It would be nice if that editor's kindness were the happy ending to my story.

However, I encountered another editor after a while who made comments about women's breasts and men's genitals. I told him the comments made me uncomfortable, but they didn't stop. I discussed his talk with human resources. The woman there said she would counsel my editor, and she advised me to find another job. I did.

Years later, now as a married woman with two children, I reported to another editor who would stop by my desk and make suggestive remarks about my underwear and the state of my marriage. Two colleagues who could overhear said to me, how can you stand that? I just shrugged. The years had taught me that speaking to HR or even to friends wouldn't elicit justice or even sympathy. I put my energy into finding another job.

Last week, in an op-ed in The New York Times, actress Lupita Nyong'o wrote about her harassment at the hands of Weinstein. "I wish I had known that there were ears to hear me," she wrote. "That justice could be served. There is clearly power in numbers."

I wish so, too. When a friend or an employee speaks about this, don't ignore it. And maybe, offer to put her up, or at least back her up, until she regains her pride and sense of safety.

Climate whistleblower Joel Clement deserves public support

Joel Clement was a senior scientist who had been working to relocate Alaskan villages doomed by rising seas. That is, until he resigned last week from the Interior Department with a noisy takedown of the Trump administration.

In a memo to his boss, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Clement wrote, "I believe you retaliated against me for disclosing the perilous impacts of climate change upon Alaskan Native communities and for working to help get them out of harm's way."

In June, Clement was removed as director of policy analysis, his memo says, and reassigned to auditing "when I have no background in that field." He filed for whistleblower protection under federal law.

According to the Los Angeles Times, he's one of about 50 people shuffled at the Interior Department, which is responsible for the management and conservation of federal land. This apparent sidelining of senior voices is troubling and just the most recent example among federal employees.

A leader with a vital obligation of stewardship of the nation's lands must have an open ear to the career people who've dedicated their lives to the mission. It's one thing to disagree, but to silence knowledge is foolhardy.

Last month before the National Petroleum Council, Zinke said some of his new staff were problematic. "I got 30 percent of the crew that's not loyal to the flag," he remarked, according to The Associated Press.

As a former U.S. Navy commander, Zinke perhaps has a more rigid sense of what it means to follow a leader. Science asks questions.

These clashes are to be expected in the disruptive age promised by President Donald Trump. He's named Cabinet secretaries who don't seem to believe in the missions of the agencies they run. Zinke, a one-term congressman from Montana, has seesawed on human contribution to climate change. He recently recommended shrinking the boundaries of protected national monuments and, according to Clement's memo, has "played fast and loose with government regulations to score points with your political base."

However, even in the transparent age pledged by President Barack Obama, whistleblowers weren't welcomed. His Justice Department prosecuted Thomas Drake, a former senior executive at the National Security Agency, who at one point faced 35 years in prison for allegedly violating the Espionage Act.

Think of the privacy we might have forfeited if Drake hadn't exposed the NSA's warrantless wiretapping of individuals inside the United States. He lost his job and years of his career to fighting the charges, eventually pleading guilty to a single misdemeanor involving misuse of NSA computers.

Dissenters have played a crucial role in our history. Publication of the Pentagon Papers showed the government deliberately misled Americans about the Vietnam War. Mark Felt revealed the Nixon administration's involvement in campaign crimes. Biochemist Jeffrey Wigand disclosed that tobacco companies manipulated cigarette blends to make them more addictive. As a result of speaking out, he received death threats.

Clement is promising to travel the same road. "You have not silenced me," he wrote to Zinke in his resignation memo. "I will continue to be an outspoken advocate for action."

However, as many whistleblowers have discovered, that vocation can be rocky. In his 2001 book, "Whistleblowers," political scientist C. Fred Alford wrote of his interviewees, "almost all say they wouldn't do it again." They had been "broken" by job loss and what they learned about the world after blowing the whistle.

That's a sad commentary on the cost and value of truth-telling. People in Alaska might pay with their towns, and possibly with their lives.

New York should pass aid-in-dying legislation

When New York's highest court ruled earlier this month that terminally ill people do not have a state constitutional right to doctor-assisted suicide, you might have expected advocates to be dejected.

However, advocates pushing the State Legislature to pass a law are snatching hope from defeat. Corinne Carey, New York campaign director for Compassion & Choices, said in an interview, "In some ways, this wasn't a surprise at all to us that the court said this is the legislature's job."

Three years of lobbying state lawmakers often ended with a noncommittal, "Let's see what the court says," Carey recalled. Now, the question is in the hands of legislators, and Compassion & Choices plans a strong push for becoming the seventh state to pass a law, in 2018. They've met with or are seeking meetings with all lawmakers and will lobby Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. They plan rallies at the Capitol.

Terminally ill people should have the option to request pills from their physician to end their suffering, provided there are adequate safeguards. The Medical Aid in Dying Act proposed in New York would require two doctors to agree that a patient 18 or older has an incurable illness with no more than six months to live, and that he or she has the mental capacity to make such a decision.

Nobody but the patient could raise this option - not a family member, not a doctor. This is self-determination at a time when fears are profound: of suffering, of prolonged existence hooked up to hospital machines.

Many never take the prescription, but request it for peace of mind and a trace of control over their destinies. In Oregon, the state with the longest experience with assisted suicide, at nearly two decades, some 35 percent who had the life-ending pills didn't take them. They died from their illnesses. Oregon seems to exist on a separate planet in the view of many New Yorkers, but California is a closer cousin. Last year, the Golden State began allowing aid in dying. In the first six months California's law was in effect, 111 people ended their lives that way.

California doctors were caught off guard by the new law, said Dr. Jessica Zitter, a specialist in critical and palliative care in Oakland and author of "Extreme Measures: Finding a Better Path to the End of Life."

However, she and other California physicians report that the law has led to frank and vital conversations about patients' fears and needs, and what defines quality of life. "It has led to access to a lot more support for patients," Zitter said in an interview.

Sometimes physicians adjust patients' medicines or treatments. Before these conversations, patients might not have expressed how much pain they were in. Some opt to go to hospice earlier than they otherwise would have.

Carey of Compassion & Choices is taking heart from the West Coast experience. People often viewed assisted suicide or palliative care as either-or - either a lethal dose or more effort to ease symptoms. Now, Carey said, it's becoming clear that "we're better working together on end-of-life care."

Sponsored by Assemb. Amy Paulin (D-Scarsdale) and Sen. Diane Savino (D-Staten Island), New York's bill has 31 co-sponsors - and public support: 77 percent of New Yorkers told EaglePoint Strategies in September 2015 that they agree with access to assisted suicide.

Large health care groups are also shifting on this issue. The New York State Public Health Association and New York State Academy of Family Physicians favor the proposed law. The Hospice and Palliative Care Association of New York State has dialed back its opposition. One holdout is the largest New York physicians group, the Medical Society of the State of New York.

For this important option, 2018 may be the year.

Sears declines as a middle-class icon

My husband and I went to Sears in East Northport recently to pick over the remains. Sears Holdings Corp. announced 265 store closings this year, and this is one of them.

Sears, the grandparent of retail, has shuttered 1 in 3 stores since 2010 under the leadership of a former Goldman Sachs executive and hedge fund manager, Edward S. Lampert. He is telling the business media that the chain, which also includes some Kmart stores that are closing, can be smaller and make money. Meanwhile, Lampert has protected his investment through real estate-finance acrobatics, according to BusinessInsider.com, and more than 200,000 Sears jobs have disappeared.

As we wandered past the $5 discount T-shirts on the first floor at the East Northport store, I was reminded of the role of Sears in the American middle class and the evolving U.S. economy: It was long a source of decently compensated jobs, quality tools and reliable appliances, but is now high on some retail analysts' list of retailers likely to file for bankruptcy protection.

Sears, Roebuck & Co. held an iconic place in America. Founded in 1886, it served people by mail-order in remote parts of the growing country. They could order rifles, stoves and entire pre-fab houses. Sears sold more than 70,000 pre-fab homes in North America between 1908 and 1940.

My husband's aunt lives in one, put together in the early 1920s for the original owner, a schoolteacher, in the tiny coal-mining town of Princeton, West Virginia. It's a fine two-story house that has worn well.

Other Sears brands have stood for sturdiness that buyers could count on: DieHard car batteries, Kenmore appliances, Craftsman tools with their lifetime warranties. Sears management has been spinning off these brands to raise cash and stanch Sears' debt. In 2014, the company sold Lands' End, and at the start of 2017, Stanley Black & Decker bought Craftsman.

The durable, finely engineered tools were what drew us to the East Northport store. We rode the escalator to the second floor, where tools were selling for as much as 75 percent off. My husband had been eyeing socket sets and adaptable wrenches. When I told him that Stanley now owned the line, he said, "Oh, good. That's a good company."

We lose a little something of ourselves when the things we've grown up with disappear. He was glad Craftsman had found a good home.

To me, Sears was the publisher of the Wish Book, a catalog of hundreds of pages that signaled the start of the Christmas season when it arrived each year at our home. My brothers and sisters and I would leaf through, making long lists of what we hoped Santa would bring. From toy trucks to G.I. Joe, from Barbie Dream Houses to bicycles. Had we been inclined, we could have ordered matching pajamas for the entire family, tree ornaments or even fruitcakes.

As America grew after the Second World War, Sears broadened its business to include appliance showrooms featuring refrigerators, dishwashers, stoves and washers and dryers. My parents' generation thought of these as durable investments. Now, with the rise of online shopping - expected to reach more than $500 billion a year in the United States by 2020 - Sears conceded to new shopping habits and made a deal with Amazon in July to sell its Kenmore appliances online.

Back at the store in East Northport, I wondered about the "1-year warranty" on the flashlight we bought, as well as the "$45 in surprise points" we received at the register toward a subsequent appliance purchase. These seemed to be promises of stability in the future. Are they worth the paper they're printed on?

Business leaders abandon Trump after Charlottesvile remarks

White nationalists were courting publicity when they organized their Unite the Right gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia, last weekend. Perhaps predictably, the attention is now cutting both ways.

Groups that had mostly existed on the fringes of society moved fully into the foreground, emboldened by a president they perceive as sympathetic. After President Donald Trump reacted to the violence on Saturday, neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer analyzed his remarks this way: "He didn't attack us . . . He implied the antifa are haters . . . He said he loves us all."

Late Tuesday, Trump reaffirmed this false equivalency by blaming "both sides" for the violent death of 32-year-old Heather Heyer.

As Trump two-steps his way around his unleaderlike remarks, tech companies are decoupling themselves from association with the alt-right, and the chief executives of some of country's largest companies are distancing themselves from the president.

Wouldn't it be ironic, and heartening, if the people Unite the Right managed to bring together are the rest of us in this country who stand against racism and ethnic hatred?

GoDaddy, a domain registrar, and then Google stopped hosting The Daily Stormer, a popular neo-Nazi website and a vital platform for promoting the Charlottesville rally. GoDaddy acted after the site published a sexist and derogatory rant about Heyer. A spokeswoman said The Daily Stormer had crossed the line into promoting violence, violating GoDaddy's policy.

Several other websites frequented by the far right, such as Vanguard America, also were forced into silence. The crowdfunding website GoFundMe removed campaigns to raise money for the driver charged with speeding into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing Heyer. And Airbnb banned Unite the Right participants from renting properties in Charlottesville.

Yesterday, faced with a slew of defections from his major business advisory councils over his comments on the Charlottesville violence, Trump disbanded his Manufacturing Council and Strategy & Policy Forum.

But pushing these fringe white nationalist groups back to the margins is not without risk, of course. Eric Stern, a professor specializing in crisis and emergency management at the University at Albany, cautions that cutting off such groups can run afoul of other important values like freedom of expression, freedom of association and the ability to monitor their online activities. "We're dealing with a lot of value complexity here," he said yesterday.

My concern is less noble: that these groups will use their outsider status to reinforce their sense of victimization, to crow about their free speech rights, and to recruit members to the cause that is never very far from their minds - inciting a race war in America. Dylann Roof, who embraced the symbols of neo-Nazism and white supremacy, hoped to ignite such a war when he killed nine African-Americans at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, in June 2015.

But social media companies aren't elected officials or public agencies, and the First Amendment exists to restrict government's power, not that of corporations. The companies are gingerly citing carefully written policies, such as GoDaddy's against promoting violence, or Airbnb's requirement that members of its community accept people regardless of race, age and other personal attributes.

These are difficult lines to draw. But the country must if it's to marginalize white supremacists and their racist vitriol.

NY should further limit solitary confinement

Before he turned his life around, Victor Pate spent 15 years, on and off, in New York State prisons on convictions of robbery and weapons possession. Roughly 2 years were spent in solitary confinement; his longest single stretch was 90 days.

In solitary, Pate said, he "began to transform" within the first week, lose touch with reality and hallucinate. He was deprived of conversation, alone for 23 hours a day. The nonviolent breach that got him isolated in the first place, he said, was a rule infraction: having too many bed sheets in his cell.

Solitary "is torture," Pate said in an interview. "It doesn't do anything to encourage a person to be better. I don't see how it can be considered rehabilitation."

Today, 22 years out of prison, Pate, 65, lives in Harlem and is an organizer for the New York Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement. CAIC's parent group, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, has targeted New York as one of about 15 states where it has a chance to minimize the use of solitary confinement.

Isolating violent prisoners is necessary, of course. But the punishment is overused, receives almost no oversight apart from the prison staff, and, according to CAIC, is disproportionately imposed on young people, African-Americans and people with mental illness. Isolation can exacerbate mental illness, and even stable people can deteriorate psychologically.

At a time when segments of society are questioning mass incarceration and moving toward rehabilitation and smoother re-entry of ex-prisoners into civilian life, New Yorkers need to take a hard look at how solitary is being used in our state.

State prisons here isolate about 4,500 people on any given day, which is more than 9 percent of the population and double the 4.4 percent national average. Many people spend months or years in solitary. Each year, hundreds are released directly from solitary to the streets.

New York agreed to some reforms in 2015, but activists say they don't go far enough.

Claire Deroche, a member of CAIC, said the group has tried for four years to pass a state law, the Humane Alternatives to Long Term Solitary Confinement Act, or HALT. In the last legislative session, it had 70 sponsors in the Assembly and 19 in the Senate. Even so, the bill didn't so much as move out of committee in the Assembly.

The bill would limit isolation to 15 days and move people after that to residential rehabilitation units, with therapy, support to address underlying causes of behavior, and seven hours a day out of a cell in programs or recreation. No one younger than 21 or who has a mental disability would be placed in isolation, and people headed for solitary would receive legal representation.

Deroche says she got involved with CAIC in 2012, when she learned that people with mental illness were "cruelly" being isolated. Federal prisons prohibit the use of solitary for mentally ill people, but a Bureau of Prisons report issued last month said the ban is often violated.

Deroche's commitment deepened when she realized that a correction officer, not a judge, is the official making the call to confine someone alone. There's a hearing, but according to CAIC, 95 percent of correction officer recommendations stand.

Something as minor as asking for a towel can get an inmate labeled a troublemaker, Pate says, and isolation becomes more frequent.

Activists were encouraged two years ago when the Obama administration banned solitary in federal prisons for juveniles. But the current administration in Washington is sending opposite signals around criminal justice, with Attorney General Jeff Sessions perceived as harsh on such issues.

So, activists will focus their efforts on state legislatures.

In a nod to helicopter parenting, colleges embrace parents at freshman orientation

Jennifer Neill returned from college orientation with her firstborn, astonished by the vanity, lack of common sense and immaturity - and it wasn't the freshmen that made her cringe. It was their parents.

At home in suburban Pittsburgh, she shared her thoughts on Facebook in a group for parents of teens and young adults.

"I'm seriously worried about this generation's ability to survive, let alone thrive with parents like some of these!" Neill posted above a photo of a dazed-looking Lucy Ricardo.

Other parents responded with horror stories about ridiculous questions put to college administrators at freshman orientation. Who keeps track of when they come home at night? Who makes sure they go to class? You'll call us if they don't, right?

One mom wanted to know whether the cafeteria staff would remind her son not to eat foods he's allergic to.

"I was thinking, when can I get out of here?" Neill said in an interview. "The questions were killing me and not something we should be worrying about at this stage with our kids!"

Helicopter parents are good for plenty of eye-rolling, but what surprised me most was that parents were attending freshman summer orientation with their kids. Isn't this a time for letting go?

What I came to learn is that while colleges and universities once held parents at arm's length, the majority now embrace them by scheduling parallel orientation sessions for each generation. They show up at the same time, and administrators present the information each set of newbies needs to know.

Just a decade ago, a Vermont campus I know of used "bouncers" to keep parents away from their kids' class selection sessions. Today, the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition, at the University of South Carolina, says 88 percent of four-year institutions include orientation activities for family members.

It would appear that colleges have bowed to the desires of over-involved parents to be enmeshed just a while longer in their offspring's adulthood.

"Over my career in higher education, since 2003, I've seen an increased attention to this on campuses," said Dallin Young, assistant director for research at the National Resource Center. "Early on, the attitude was, let them be adults already. There's been a shift in the mentality."

Partly that's a result of parents pushing to make it so. They're going to show up anyway, administrators figured, so why not turn them into partners? Parents might notice students struggling before staff do. The Wall Street Journal noted this week a doubling of university mental health counselors in residence in the past two years.

Another factor is the soaring cost of college, which makes parents more custodial about their investments. And more students who might have skipped college in the past because of learning disabilities or because their parents didn't earn college degrees, now believe a degree is essential to making a good living.

But including parents at orientation begs the question: When does the letting go begin? I confess, I sent my rising freshman to orientation by herself. She drove more than three hours to get there. I was nervous, but September will be the real deal, and I thought it would be better for her to take a small step now.

Or perhaps I just didn't want to be the parent asking the clueless question in front of the others. Will the university staff make sure she cleans her room?

I can see the bouncer walking my way now.

All colleges should remove this barrier to people who've served time

Applying to college requires providing a colossal amount of information. There's one question that, more than most, causes many would-be students to give up: Have you ever been convicted of a felony?

Checking "yes" on the box while applying to one of the State University of New York's 64 campuses has meant receiving another slew of paperwork and inquiries - some of which cross the lines of privacy or are impossible to answer, according to a study by the Center for Community Alternatives, a prisoners rights organization. The group counted 38 additional documents the schools have required felons to provide.

At that point, two out of three felons give up. An admissions committee never has a chance to learn the details of the crime, or whether the person has put that chapter in his or her past. It's like saying a person's future can rise only as high as the worst mistake he or she has made.

As a society that wants to help people to reintegrate after serving time, with a fair chance of success, that's not good enough.

As a society that wants to help people to reintegrate after serving time, with a fair chance of success, that's not good enough.

Starting July 1, the beginning of the fall 2018 admissions cycle, SUNY will no longer ask that question before considering students for admission. That makes SUNY the nation's largest higher education system to reverse course. Some public university systems, such as California's and The City University of New York, don't ask about criminal history.

SUNY made this decision after considering the applicant drop-off rate reported in the Center for Community Alternatives' recent study. More than 86 other higher education systems and institutions around the country also have committed to distance their admissions decisions from criminal records, as part of the Obama administration's Fair Chance Higher Education Pledge in favor of expanding college opportunity for Americans who've served time behind bars.

This comes at a time of increasing fear that overpopulated prisons are simply turning out better-trained criminals who cycle back into the justice system at a high cost, both in terms of dollars and wasted lives.

Only after a student is accepted will a SUNY school ask about felony convictions, for the purposes of approving campus housing, clinical or field experiences, internships or study abroad programs. SUNY's information technology folks have even figured out how to hide the "felony" question when Common Application users apply for admission.

SUNY's decision is laudable, especially because getting a higher education is one of the best ways for former inmates to increase their chances of staying out of trouble.

College and Community Fellowship, a Manhattan-based group that helps formerly incarcerated women obtain college degrees, says 66 percent of incarcerated non-degree earners nationwide are likely to return to prison within three years of release. The likelihood drops to 5.6 percent with a bachelor's degree and less than 1 percent for people who earn a master's.

New Hour for Women and Children-LI, a nonprofit based in Brentwood, is trying to replicate CCF's program on Long Island. While SUNY's strides to "ban the box" asking about felonies will help many here, particularly at community colleges, it won't apply to private colleges and universities such as Hofstra, Adelphi, Touro, LIU Post or St. Joseph's.

Efforts to obtain details on their admissions policies went unanswered. Only New York Institute of Technology responded; it doesn't ask for criminal histories from applicants.

Bills in the State Legislature that would have banned the box for all New York colleges didn't get any traction this year. This is something lawmakers should reconsider for the next session.

First published in Newsday. Anne Michaud is the Interactive Opinion Editor for Newsday.

Trump's response to London Bridge attack isn't leaderlike

Among the statements a leader might make in the wake of a bloody, gut-wrenching terrorist attack is this: “It is impossible to fully comprehend the evil that would have conjured up such a cowardly and depraved assault.”

Or perhaps this: The attacks are “a declaration of war against the entire civilized world.”

Those were the words of the Canadian and German heads of state, and a French newspaper headline, after the Sept. 11 massacre.

The London Bridge attack last weekend doesn’t compare in scope of lives lost and damage But there is something about the brutality of the assailants plowing into the crowd, stabbing bar and restaurant patrons at random, and the sheer repetition of assaults in Britain after years of relative quiet. This was the second terrorist attack in London in three months and the second in Britain in just two weeks.

The moment called for a response from President Donald Trump that expressed concern for the dead, the injured and their families. He could have praised the bravery of the British police, who took down the three terrorists within eight minutes. Trump might have expressed solidarity with our ally contending, as we are, with random, deadly acts. These atrocities are carried out to stoke fear in going on with our daily lives — in recent cases in Britain, people taking in the magnificence of the Thames River or swaying in Manchester to Ariana Grande’s beat.

Nine days after the Sept. 11 attacks, President George W. Bush said there were now two camps, and civilized people must choose. “Every nation in every region now has a decision to make,” he declared. “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

After London Bridge, by inflaming division and fear, Trump traded in fear.

After London Bridge, by inflaming division and fear, Trump traded in fear.

In the moments after the London assault began on Saturday, before facts were known, Trump retweeted a Drudge Report story saying a terrorist attack might be in progress. Never mind that, as president, he has more than a dozen intelligence agencies that could have provided more credible information than Drudge. Never mind that days earlier, he mistakenly jumped to the conclusion that a suicidal gambler’s casino robbery in the Philippines was a “terrorist attack in Manila.”

Facts aren’t as important to Trump as lighting up his base to roar for a travel ban. His initial tweet Saturday night concluded, “We need the Travel Ban as an extra level of safety!” Only afterward did he express solidarity with Britain.

By the next day, he was back to making political points of the tragedy, saying the mayor of London was underplaying the cause for alarm. Of course with a name like Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim mayor of London could be suspect in Trump’s worldview. He took Khan’s words out of context and tweeted that the mayor was making a “pathetic excuse.”

Imagine how Americans would have reacted to being called pathetic after Sept. 11, or San Bernardino or Orlando. Calling out Khan is reminiscent of the Trumpians’ constant reminders during Barack Obama’s presidency that his middle name is Hussein.

Trump’s admirers appreciate the authenticity he displays when his Twitter finger twitches. However, in troubled times, what unites and divides us aren’t the defining characteristics of our birth. What connects us are the conscious choices we make: to side with the civilized or with the terrorists.

In times of terror, a real leader would remind us of this higher human bond.

Anne Michaud is the interactive editor for Newsday Opinion.

Local jail takes on substance abuse, a major cause of repeat crimes

Three years ago, Sean Paddock left a bar after drinking, got into his car, started driving and nearly killed someone. He was arrested and eventually served 18 months in the Suffolk County jail in Yaphank.

None of the facts of his situation - the near-miss fatality, a confrontation with police, court appearances, outpatient rehab - resonated deeply enough for Paddock, 30, to change his ways.

But he did find hope, of all places, in jail. He told his story to a crowd gathered May 18 for a ribbon-cutting of a new addiction-treatment wing in Yaphank.

Individual jail cells can be isolating. Suffolk County, NY, is experimenting with communal cells with inmates committed to going straight.

As a society, we are rethinking why and how we incarcerate people. We're contending with a soul-crushing rise in addiction to heroin, opioids, alcohol. Localities around the country are trying new ways to fight back and to rehabilitate people who commit crimes, but whose underlying problem is addiction.

This is Suffolk County's window into that transformation. Paddock's recovery isn't common, but it offers hope.

When he entered jail, he told the gathering, "I still had a selfish mindset." After participating in the addiction program, he realized that "a lot of my addiction was around insecurities and fears and uncomfortability with who I was as a person. I started developing gratitude in the program, and a newfound love for myself."

With his mother in the crowd, Paddock called himself a felon, but now also "a true member of society."

The program is an expansion of the drunken driving treatment that was offered at the jail for years, Sheriff Vincent DeMarco said in an interview. In the past five years, the jail population has dropped dramatically, making room for a wing of the building dedicated to treatment.

The treatment program is now also offered to women, and participants are housed separately from the general population, with two 24-bed common rooms, one for each gender.

Colleen Ansanelli, a licensed social worker who runs the treatment program, said the communal rooms are a big improvement. Although the open house at the new wing was held last week, it began operating on April 15.

"Their habits are to isolate, which is fostered by the structure of a jail," Ansanelli said in an interview. "This is more of a treatment community. It's much more intimate. If somebody isn't taking their recovery seriously, the group uncovers that."

There are private rooms for one-on-one counseling, which is key to getting someone to open up. "The thing that has to change is the thinking," Ansanelli said. "We have to replace, 'I'm a loser.' "

Such cognitive behavioral therapy has become the predominant treatment for offenders in the United States and Europe, according to the National Institute of Corrections, a resource agency within the U.S. Department of Justice. Research shows that professional cognitive treatment can reduce recidivism by 25 to 35 percent, which means saving taxpayers money on incarceration.

The Suffolk program is still working out the kinks. Ansanelli had to remove four men this week and return them to the general jail population for what she termed "infecting the group with their negative thinking." Their spots will be filled quickly. The demand for treatment among the 1,270-person jail population is high. Some want to get well; others simply want to impress a judge and win an early release.

This program can't promise to turn out solid members of society, but it's better than what we've had in the past.

First published in Newsday. Anne Michaud is the Interactive Opinion Editor for Newsday.

Obamacare repeal, new concerns about women's health care

Washington is having another whirl with repealing and replacing Obamacare.

Lost in much news coverage of concessions to the Freedom Caucus and amassing the magic 216 House votes for passage is this: This legislation is as devastating to women's health care as the previous repeal version.

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Protesters in favor of Obamacare gather outside the Supreme Court building in Washintgon. (Photo: Thomson Reuters)

The new House effort adopted Thursday in Washington mostly along party lines would eliminate the "essential health benefits" covered by the Affordable Care Act, including maternity and newborn care. The bill would pull funding for poor women to go to Planned Parenthood for birth control and lifesaving cancer screenings. It would restrict private insurance coverage of abortion.

"This latest attempt at a health care plan lacks an important component for women - health care," said Robin Chappelle Golston, president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood Empire State Acts, which represents Planned Parenthood in New York. "They say there is no war on women, but this sure looks like one."

No kidding. Before Congress could agree to an omnibus spending bill this week to keep the government running, Democrats pushed to get rid of a GOP rider that, according to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, would have undermined a woman's right to reproductive health.

The continued government-sponsored enthusiasm for pregnancy has begun to look like a chapter out of "The Handmaid's Tale." The 1985 Margaret Atwood novel, recently made into a Hulu series, is set in an imaginary totalitarian future in which fertile women are required to bear children to repopulate the nation.

The bill now moves to the Senate, but Thursday's vote in Washington may light a fire under the New York State Legislature to pass measures that shore up basic health care for this state's families. It's worth emphasizing this truth: If women don't have control over their own reproductive biology, they will no longer be free.

"It's been a difficult time," Golston said of the Trump era. However, "it's a positive time in terms of people who've been activated who were not active before."

That includes Long Islanders, who have assembled at more than 65 events and demonstrations since the November election to fight for protecting reproductive rights and access to reproductive health care including contraception coverage. Planned Parenthood of Nassau County has nearly doubled its email list to 15,000. Suffolk County figures weren't immediately available.

In New York, some state lawmakers are trying to erect a bulwark against Washington action, but the efforts are in limbo. Two bills that passed the Assembly await action in the State Senate. One is the Reproductive Health Act, which would strengthen New York law to allow abortion after 24 weeks if the fetus is no longer living or the mother's health or life is at risk. That's consistent with Roe v. Wade, which New York law predates.

The odds of the Senate passing the Reproductive Health Act are dismal. But a second bill that would protect contraception coverage, the Comprehensive Contraception Coverage Act, may have a shot. Golston said Senate Democrats and the Independent Democratic Conference support it, and that Republican Sen. Elaine Phillips of Flower Hill has been "helpful." Her office confirmed she would vote for the contraception act. Originally proposed by state Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman, the bill might be blocked by the State Senate majority coalition from coming to the floor for a vote.

The coalition should think carefully before crushing a bill that would be a backstop if the Trump administration delivers on its promise to repeal Obamacare and starve Planned Parenthood of federal funds.

First published in Newsday. Anne Michaud is the Interactive Opinion Editor for Newsday.

Trump's antics stoke opposition

President Donald Trump's continuing assaults on cherished American ideals, like protecting the environment and providing health care, are having an intriguing side effect. His administration is keeping the outrage at a boil.

For organizations that encourage and train women to run for political office, that has made for a very busy four months since Election Day.

Tens of thousands marched against President Trump in New York City on Jan. 21, 2017, and the total nationwide was in the millions. (Photo: mathiaswasik/flickr/cc)

Activism has spiked in many areas, from demonstrations in airports to raucous town halls to protests at politicians' doorsteps. But the events of the last few months have fundamentally changed attitudes about politics, particularly among women. Organizers say many more women are embracing the value of running for office.

VoteRunLead, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that offers classes with titles like "30 Things Every Woman Needs to Know to Run for Office," recently surveyed women who had signed up for the program. In the past, two-thirds of VoteRunLead's students said they were thinking of running in the next five years or so. When their children were grown, perhaps.

Now, according to VoteRunLead founder Erin Vilardi, 66 percent want to run in the next two years.

"In the past, we heard, it's on my mind, but it's not urgent," she said. "A new crop of women are raising their hands and accelerating the schedule."

VoteRunLead, which is based in New York, unveiled a website this week under the banner "Run as you are." An important function of groups like this is matching the skills and passions of individuals with the right offices.

"Probably, the number one question I get is what to run for," Vilardi says. She begins by asking what policies they want to change. Most will end up seeking school board or local offices, with a sprinkling interested in federal posts.

From September 2014 to the November election, VoteRunLead trained about 5,000 women at conferences and online. Since Nov. 8, another 5,565 have signed up. Organizations like the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, She Should Run and Ignite National are reporting similar surging interest.

Even optimists thought interest might fade after the Jan. 21 women's marches. But Anne Moses, president of Ignite National, which offers programs for high school and college women, says so far, apathy has been a stranger. "I thought maybe it would slow down," she said, "but this administration is doing a good job of keeping people angry."

Cue Hillary Clinton. On Tuesday, she gave a major speech in San Francisco to an audience of 6,000, and she's scheduled today to address the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security in Washington. On Tuesday, she tried out a new mantra: "Resist, insist, persist, enlist."

Her timing was perfect. Last week brought the image of a room of men in Congress debating whether to cover maternity care, along with Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts making light of losing mammograms. He was forced to apologize.

Such moments are raising awareness in young women that "sexism is real, it's not just something my mom is talking about," said Moses of Ignite National, which is based in San Francisco.

The recent ineptitude of the White House - failing on two travel bans and Obamacare repeal - also demonstrates, like a reality show, that no experience is necessary to try governing. The missteps have been liberating for potential candidates, and especially women, who research shows tend to underestimate how well-prepared they already are for jobs.

Who knew that Trump's Washington would offer so much inspiration?

First published in Newsday. Anne Michaud is the Interactive Opinion Editor for Newsday.

Melania Trump goes at own pace

There's one Trump whose approval ratings are climbing fast, and it's not the guy in the Oval Office.

First lady Melania Trump has picked up 16 percentage points since before the inauguration, according to a recent poll by CNN/ORC. Fifty-two percent said they have a "favorable" opinion of Trump, even as her husband's numbers remain mired in the low 40s.

Americans, it seems, are getting to know the former model from Slovenia. The same poll found that 23 percent had "no opinion" of her before President Donald Trump's inauguration; afterward, only 12 percent hadn't yet made a judgment.

First Lady Melania Trump arrives at a luncheon she hosted to mark International Women's Day in the State Dining Room at the White House March 8, 2017. (Photo: Getty Images)

This first lady is like no other in recent memory. She had no experience in the political spotlight before landing in this high-profile, if poorly defined, role at the top of American public life. She was known in New York celebrity circles, of course, and pictured in society coverage as the wife of a publicity-loving billionaire whose name adorns skyscrapers, hotels and golf courses.

But national politics, unlike celebrity and fame, often demands more gravitas and homage to tradition. Melania Trump is navigating this all in real time, without the training wheels her predecessors had, and with a partner whose political brand is built on upending Washington norms.

Before becoming first lady, Michelle Obama was the wife of a state senator and then a U.S. senator. Laura Bush was married to a Texas governor and a member of a family steeped in politics. Hillary Clinton's husband had been the attorney general and then governor of Arkansas. Barbara Bush had a wealth of experience as the wife of a former CIA director, ambassador to China, congressman and vice president.

As political spouses, these women made mistakes and learned from them.

Trump's first major foray was publicly bruising. She was the wife of the candidate then, supporting him as he accepted the Republican Party nomination. Her speech at the convention was cribbed from her predecessor's - and the plagiarism was rightly blasted.

It's enough to make a person want to hole up in a posh Manhattan penthouse and tend to her 10-year-old son. Get back to basics.

Now, though, there are signs that Trump is testing the waters as first lady. Earlier this month, she visited a hospital in Manhattan to read to sick children. She chose the classic, "Oh, the Places You'll Go!" In the lore of first ladies, this is public relations gold.

Trump's visit cast her as nurturing and selfless, with little risk. No tyke was going to pop up and ask whether she had permission to quote Dr. Seuss.

Last week, she hosted an invitation-only luncheon at the White House in honor of International Women's Day and spoke about equality, freedom and women helping each other achieve success. Also, the Trumps will honor the 139-year-old custom next month of rolling Easter eggs across the White House South Lawn.

Step by step, Trump is adopting traditions we associate with first ladies. Her next challenge will be the gravitas.

Before Election Day, Trump said she was interested in working to combat cyberbullying, but she hasn't begun, at least not publicly. Nancy Reagan is remembered for her anti-drug message, Obama for encouraging kids to exercise and Laura Bush for reminding children to read. Must each first lady have a cause? It will be interesting to see how Trump answers that question.

For now, she's made it clear that she will remain in New York until son Barron finishes his school year. This also allows her to approach her new role with caution.

First published in Newsday. Anne Michaud is the Interactive Opinion Editor for Newsday.

pain relief as a habit for seniors

As the medical community and lawmakers have responded to the crisis in opioid abuse by making the pills harder to get, there's one group whose needs are being largely neglected: the elderly.

More than 30 percent of people enrolled in Medicare Part D used opioid prescriptions, according to a top Medicare administrator's report to Congress in February 2015. Older people are more apt to have chronic pain from musculoskeletal disorders like arthritis, from nerves damaged by diabetes or shingles, or from cancer. They're more likely to have surgery.

New state laws and guidelines from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over recent months, have sought to tighten controls on who receives the pain meds and how much.

While many view opioid addiction as a youthful problem, many older Americans are struggling with dependency and pain. Alternatives to opioids aren't always clear.

I've heard from older people who say please don't allow public pressure to make these completely unavailable. They fear returning to a life of constant pain - mostly physical but sometimes also emotional. Addiction counselor Clare Waismann calls opioid use "a blanket between you and reality."

So the problem becomes, how to weigh relieving pain against the possibility that strong, habit-forming drugs derail one's quality of life? American medicine must release its dependence on popping pills and force health insurers to recognize there's a healthier path for many people.

Opioid pills decrease the pain, particularly at first. Then, as time goes on, they have less effect, and people take more to stop from hurting. The higher doses can lead to confusion and depression, even rendering people homebound. Some are misdiagnosed with dementia.

Older people also don't metabolize the drugs as well, so they stay in the body longer. Opioids can bring on vomiting or constipation, increase the risk of falls and fractures, and damage kidneys and hearts with long-term use.

Most seniors recognize the signs of growing drug dependence, but they're ashamed to talk about it, says Waismann, who runs a medical detox and treatment center in Southern California that serves older people - a rarity. They grew up in a time when drug addiction and alcoholism were viewed as evil, and so they remain silent about the problem. They don't want to identify as "drug addicts," nor do many rehab centers accept older people because of the risk of death involved as people are weaned off opioids.

Nationally, opioid prescriptions have begun to decline, and some doctors have completely stopped prescribing them. Many are recommending non-drug alternatives to manage pain, such as exercise, acupuncture, weight loss, therapy, meditation, tai chi or yoga.

Yet, insurers often don't pay for those, or for costly inpatient clinics like Waismann's.

But even without special treatment, people can speak to their doctors about slowly reducing the dosage. Waismann believes there are alternative medicines to manage muscular and nerve pain. And even at an advanced age, people should think 10 years down the road.

Waismann told me this story. An 83-year-old woman went to the clinic last month. She never had a drug problem, but over the last eight or 10 years had a number of hip and neck surgeries. She was taking more opioids but was still in pain.

She had been worried about her growing drug dependency for nearly four years but didn't know how to stop.

After detox, she was more clear-headed and able to return to driving, traveling, golfing, volunteering at a foundation and visiting with her grandchildren.

She still has a full life ahead.

First published in Newsday. Anne Michaud is the Interactive Opinion Editor for Newsday.

It's necessary to keep talking about politics, religion

We're living in an age when provocation is highly rewarded.

Candidate Donald Trump provoked his Republican primary competitors with epithets like "little Marco" and "low energy" Jeb Bush. In recent weeks, Milo Yiannopoulos, a website editor often identified by the title "provocateur," was rewarded with a lucrative book contract and a speaking role at the influential Conservative Political Action Conference.

Milo Yiannopoulos is a British media personality associated with the political alt-right and a former senior editor for Breitbart News. 

Until he went too far. Apparently, our society keeps redefining what "too far" means. Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women, with a newlywed wife at home, was apparently no longer enough to shock us into dumping this public figure into obscurity. Instead, voters rewarded him with the presidency.

However, Yiannopoulos was not so fortunate. After his comments about sex and teenage boys became public this week, he's out of a book contract, a job and a speaking role. For now. He has pledged to return to the spotlight, and even splashier..

I could go on about the relative outrage over female and male assault, but that's a topic for another day. What concerns me is that Americans react like Pavlov's dog, salivating over name-calling, "yuge" Twitter audiences and whatever is viral, trending, titillating, angry or divisive.

Do we no longer attend to substance? Where is the space in our lives for quieter, saner voices? Former Secretary of State James Baker on the right, or Sen. Bernie Sanders on the left? OK, Sanders isn't quiet. But you get my point. He's thoughtful. He has ideas.

A reactive, sharply divided country is what we have, and the split is serving us poorly. There are family members and important subjects we're avoiding. Popular wisdom has held that one shouldn't discuss religion or politics. However, to heal our divisions and move our country forward, it's essential that we toss out that old truism and bring politics back into our private conversations but discuss them respectfully.

Yet, as in any good arena, there must be rules. Rules allow teams of men to rush at each other on a gridiron without producing total chaos.

One useful rule would be to stop uttering phrases simply to provoke. I have no control, of course, over President Trump tweeting about "liberal activists" or a "so-called judge," but the rest of us can commit to packing away the verbal bombs in our lives. As author Don Miguel Ruiz advised, words have power; be impeccable with your word.

Another possibility I'll borrow from a long-ago conversation with Ed Rigaud, founder of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati. As he was developing the center in the late 1990s, he spoke about a room where people could converse about race, one-on-one. The idea was disconcerting, but we've reached a point of desperation in our American conversation, about both race and politics, when we should try it. Where there's discomfort, there may be growth.

A final suggestion comes from the world of project management. A facilitator runs a meeting of stakeholders, who often have competing interests. When the participants get stuck in an argument, the facilitator moves the sticking point aside - into a "parking lot," they say - so the conversation can continue productively.

A productive conversation about politics? In this environment? Dream on, you might say. But we've been stuck in the parking lot for a good while. It's time to try.

First published in Newsday. Anne Michaud is the Interactive Opinion Editor for Newsday.

A women's agenda for Trump era

If the participants in women's marches around the country last weekend are looking for a public policy road map, they would do well to pick up a copy of "Work Pause Thrive."

Published this month, author Lisen Stromberg's ambitious book lays out an agenda for legislative changes and describes policies that progressive employers are putting in place. The goal is to help along a new generation of men and women who say they want both involved parenting and rewarding work.

A new book from journalist Lisen Stromberg, Work Pause Thrive, offers a collective agenda for working families. (Photo: LisenStromberg.com)

As a devotee of advice on work-life balance, I found "Work Pause Thrive" dealt well with both policy and practical advice for would-be parents just starting their careers. The book navigates an economy still churning from the expansive entry of mothers into the workforce since the 1970s, without having put into place adequate affordable child care or altering the "all-in, all-the-time" workplace culture.

Stromberg tells this story from experience. She met a group of women in 1996 in a new mother training class recommended by their doctors. Twenty years later, the women are still in touch, and many of their careers look like "a direct trajectory to the top of our professions," she writes, "but buried deep within our resumes are twists and turns, pull backs and pauses."

The women crafted "nonlinear" careers that often required soul-searching, risk and straightforward negotiation with employers. But she wants the millennial generation to know it can be done - and that technology and attitudes are moving in this direction.

Putting family first for a time doesn't have to mean sacrificing one's career, according to Stromberg's survey of nearly 1,500 women. She highlighted women like Ann Fudge to make her point.

One of the most successful African-American women in business in 2001, Fudge quit her job as a division president for Kraft Foods to spend more time raising her two children. Fudge had recently been named by Fortune magazine as one of the 50 most powerful women in business.

When she left her corporate job, there was a brouhaha in the media about how she couldn't hack being both a mother and a top businesswoman.

The rest of her story received much less attention. Within a few years, she returned to work as president of the Young & Rubicam advertising agency.

Stromberg focused on college-educated women and men, she told me in an email, because that's the world she knows. "I was motivated to understand why even women with resources can't find solutions for challenges in the workplace when it comes to dealing with caregiving," she wrote.

However, middle- and lower-class families - in which Stromberg says women are increasingly opting out of paid work - would also benefit from her policy prescriptions for national paid leave, high-quality universal child care and paid sick leave.

Lower earners find it cheaper to stay home with children because they can't find work that covers the cost of child care. Meanwhile, many young parents struggle with student debt - never mind saving for college or retirement.

"We have been distracted by the notion that work/life integration is a privilege," Stromberg wrote in her email. "The reality is we lack public and workplace policies to support working parents. Let's focus on that issue and stop pitting women of different socio-economic classes against each other."

Women's Marchers, take notice.

First published in Newsday. Anne Michaud is the Interactive Opinion Editor for Newsday.

Trump's bully pulpit: Twitter

Melania and Barron are staying in New York, and now it's not even clear that Donald Trump needs to move to the White House to make public policy. All he needs is a smartphone and a Twitter account.

The president-elect has had a pretty good week on Twitter, nixing a backroom deal in Congress that would have defanged an ethics watchdog and nudging Ford Motor Co. to expand in Michigan instead of Mexico.

President-elect Donald Trump took to Twitter on Nov. 16, 2017 to announce that Ford Motor Co. won’t be moving Lincoln production from Kentucky to Mexico.

Why would Trump change what's working for him? Why heed Tuesday's advice from top congressional Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer and dispense with this "Twitter presidency"?

Trump has achieved what many leaders have tried: talking around and over the news media and Congress directly to his supporters. Unfiltered to 18.6 million followers. But make no mistake, today's victories are riddled with risk.

Of course a journalist would say that, you're thinking. The press doesn't want to be made irrelevant.

But consider this: Issuing orders by tweet runs the risk of inflaming fear and setting in motion forces that Trump doesn't intend and can't control.

The late Italian novelist Umberto Eco listed fascist traits that Trump appears to have in common with former dictator Benito Mussolini: Taking action for action's sake. Dissent equated to treason. Fear of the other. Appeal to social frustration. Machismo. Selective populism.

Mussolini reigned by means of fear.

What was the motive for Ford's reversal if not the fear of a threat, which Trump has made repeatedly, that he will attach a 35 percent tariff on products made in Mexico coming into the United States? In public statements, Ford CEO Mark Fields attributed the decision to market forces and called it a "vote of confidence for President-elect Trump."

Whether he believes the 35 percent tariff will materialize or not, Fields is playing it safe. Trump's threats hold extra power at the moment, because nobody knows which of his statements he will back up once he gets into office.

House Republicans acted out of fear, as well. When Trump got wind of the plan to gut a congressional ethics panel, he tweeted, "do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog . . . their number one act and priority."

Within two hours, House GOP leaders held an emergency meeting and dropped the plan.

One has to smile at Trump's success in reversing this secret backroom deal. Does anyone outside of Congress really want a lighter ethical touch for Washington lawmakers?

But it doesn't stretch the imagination to think congressional leaders felt threatened. Certainly, 140 characters - or even a string of tweets - isn't the best way to change minds through logical discourse. The lawmakers kowtowed to power, and that's worrisome. It doesn't feel like democracy.

Think of the times when a Trump tweet has not saved jobs or embarrassed Congress but its effect has turned the other way. The president-elect used Twitter in early December to criticize Chuck Jones, a union leader at Indiana's Carrier plant. Afterward, Jones said he received threats from Trump's supporters.

The Anti-Defamation League has reported a surge of anti-Semitic tweets directed at journalists, many of them from Trump fans.

In a nod to more traditional communication, Trump has announced that he will hold a news conference next week to talk about separating his private business interests from his new public role.

That's a step in the right direction. Complex issues like this one deserve more than 140 characters.

First published in Newsday. Anne Michaud is the Interactive Opinion Editor for Newsday.

what voter suppression brings

On his national "thank you" tour of states that voted Republican, President-elect Donald Trump gave a shout-out to an unlikely group. He claimed at an event in Michigan that African-Americans came through for him "big league," and those that didn't vote were "almost as good" in helping him win.

It was a bizarre claim, because exit polls showed that nationally, Hillary Clinton won African-American voters 89 percent to Trump's 8 percent.

Known as the "Stump for Trump Girls," Lynette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson made waves when they endorsed Trump for president on CNN back in August. (Photo:CNN)

But coming after the first presidential election since the Voting Rights Act was gutted by the Supreme Court, Trump's claim is not only bizarre, it's Orwellian. Was he signaling to his supporters that they had done well in suppressing Democratic votes?

It's hard to know with Trump. As unscripted as he appears, he often laces his speech with music to the ears of the "alt-right," a white nationalist movement

We don't know for sure how many Americans were disenfranchised on Election Day. Some civil rights groups - the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights - say that Republican-backed voter suppression laws probably helped tip the election in Trump's favor.

No one should vote who doesn't have that right. However, there's been almost zero evidence of voting fraud, while suppression efforts around the country have put disproportionate pressure on voters who traditionally vote Democratic: minorities, the poor, college students and other young voters.

Fourteen states had new voting restrictions this year for the first time in a presidential election, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law. These include stricter voter ID laws, more stringent registration requirements, reduced early voting and greater hurdles to restoring voting rights to people with criminal convictions.

On the face of it, these measures look like well-intentioned efforts to safeguard our democracy and the voting rights of citizens. But look a little deeper to witness how these rules are employed.

In Alabama, a driver's license or special picture ID is required at polling places. Before Election Day, eight counties with the highest percentages of nonwhite voters closed driver's license bureaus.

In Arizona, Republican election officials in Maricopa County reduced the number of polling places to 60 from 200 in 2012 and 400 in 2008. More than half the county's population is nonwhite, and one-third is Hispanic.

In North Carolina, citizen activists calling themselves the Voter Integrity Project petitioned to purge voter rolls. They sent mail to addresses in Beaufort, Cumberland and Moore counties, and tracked those that came back as undeliverable. In August and September, activists submitted some 4,500 names to the county elections boards, which canceled the voters' registrations.

Thousands of North Carolinians who tried to vote found they had been taken off the rolls, and a disproportionate number were black, said the NAACP, which has filed a federal lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge Loretta Biggs called the purge "insane," and something out of the Jim Crow era.

Yet, Trump amped up his supporters' fears with claims - wholly discredited - that "millions" voted illegally in November. Two days after he tweeted that, Michigan Republicans introduced legislation to tighten the state's already strict voter ID law.

Trump nation is ready to act on his inferences, even without evidence. How frightening is that?

First published in Newsday. Anne Michaud is the Interactive Opinion Editor for Newsday.

What now for women in politics?

Some women I know are talking about running for office. It's an attractive idea and an empowering response to a devastating turn. Many sense a new obligation to seek political power after Hillary Clinton's loss.

A sea of pink hats on march participants in Washington on Saturday, Jan. 21, 2017, the day after President Donald Trump's inauguration. (Photo: Ruth Fremson/The New York Times)

That's a bright silver lining to the presidential election, which many of us saw as a highly qualified woman losing to a man with no governing experience. I'm not alone in looking for that silver lining; The Associated Press and The Washington Post have written about 20- and 30-something women submitting their names for local school boards and city council seats.

And yet, the promise of women jumping into the political arena could easily be wishful thinking. In fact, the brutal 2016 election might have convinced more women that politics isn't worth it. That would be dispiriting, as I believe a feminine ethos is needed to improve education, environmental protection, health care, retirement security, and the working lives of parents and other caregivers.

As a nation, we've been at this juncture before. In the early 1990s, when Clarence Thomas was nominated to the Supreme Court, former aide Anita Hill accused him of sexual harassment in televised hearings before Congress. Outrage about how she was treated, in part, led to the election of four women to the U.S. Senate in 1992. We dubbed it "The Year of the Woman."

Twenty-four years later, it seems that great opening wasn't sustained. Come January, only 19 percent of Congress will be female.

This election year was so much harsher than 1992. T-shirts said "Trump that bitch." Fake news circulated about a Clinton aide's connection to a Washington pizza parlor that was a front for a pedophilia ring. At least some of the 42 percent of women who voted for Donald Trump believed his claim that Clinton was cynically playing the "woman card" to get elected.

Jennifer Lawless, the director of American University's Women & Politics Institute, told The Atlantic, "I think the defeat has the potential to set back female candidates' emergence. Women are less likely to think they have thick enough skin to endure the rigors of the campaign trail, and to contend that voters will vote for them, donors will give to them, and the media will cover them fairly."

Also in the silver-lining crowd is Wall Street legend Sallie Krawcheck. She says Trump's win could motivate business women to seek leadership roles. Fortune published Krawcheck's call-to-arms Tuesday in the form of a letter to her young daughter: The girl cried and vowed to "accomplish something important life," she wrote of her daughter's reaction to Clinton's loss.

Yet, even so, Krawcheck had to admit that there's "a perilously thin line of acceptable behavior" for women leaders - especially those who wear their strength and ambition boldly like Clinton.

Some countries have set quotas for women in elective office. In 1993, India amended its constitution to reserve one-third of village council seats for women. Also, one-third of council leaders, or pradhans, had to be female.

At the start, just 5 percent of council seats were held by India's women. By 2005, the experiment had exceeded its 33 percent quota, with 40 percent of seats in women's hands. The result has been a greater focus of village councils on clean water, police responsiveness, roads and education. Parents in villages that have had two female pradhans are more likely to want their daughters to study past high school. They see a potential future for them in political office. Do we?

First published in Newsday. Anne Michaud is the Interactive Opinion Editor for Newsday.