THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

An evangelical Christian, Mr. Pompeo had just returned from tours of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, built on the ground where Jesus is said to have been crucified and buried, and of tunnels beneath the Western Wall, by the holiest site in Judaism. The interviewer posed a question around a biblical tale about a queen who saved Jews from slaughter by a Persian official: Did Mr. Pompeo think President Trump had been “raised for such a time as this, just like Queen Esther, to help save the Jewish people from the Iranian menace?”

“As a Christian, I certainly believe that’s possible,” Mr. Pompeo said. “It was remarkable — so we were down in the tunnels where we could see 3,000 years ago, and 2,000 years ago, if I have the history just right — to see the remarkable history of the faith in this place, and the work that our administration’s done, to make sure that this democracy in the Middle East, that this Jewish state, remains. I am confident that the Lord is at work here.”

White evangelical Christians are a powerful force in the Republican Party. Vice President Mike Pence is a staunch believer and former President George W. Bush is an adherent, too.

But no secretary of state in recent decades has been as open and fervent as Mr. Pompeo about discussing Christianity and foreign policy in the same breath. That has increasingly raised questions about the extent to which evangelical beliefs are influencing American diplomacy.

On Monday, in a speech at the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel group, Mr. Pompeo told an anecdote about Tibor Baranski, a Christian who saved 3,000 Jews in Hungary during World War II. Then he said, “As secretary of state and as a Christian, I’m proud to lead American diplomacy to support Israel’s right to defend itself.”

The next day, Mr. Pompeo announced an expansion of Trump administration anti-abortion policies, saying the United States would stop funding foreign organizations that support other groups that perform abortions. It is a policy popular with conservatives, Catholics and evangelical Christians.

Though Mr. Trump is secular, white evangelicals are a big part of his voter base, and some of his major foreign policy moves, planned or supported by Mr. Pompeo, are intended to shore up political support.

Studies show that white evangelicals are much more likely than other Americans to believe that Israel fulfills a biblical prophecy. Known as Christian Zionists, they believe God promised the land to the Jews, and that the gathering of Jews in Israel is foretold in the prophecy of the rapture — the ascent of Christians into the kingdom of God.

Mr. Pompeo talks about the rapture. “We will continue to fight these battles,” he said at a “God and Country Rally” in 2015, because there is a “never-ending struggle” until “the rapture.”

“Be part of it,” he said at the meeting, at the Summit church in Wichita, Kan. “Be in the fight.”

// posted by montag @ 1:38 PM 0 Comments

President Trump on Friday called on Mexico to stop all illegal immigration, escalating a repeated threat by adding a timeline: Mr. Trump said he would close large swaths or all of the southern border as early as “next week” if the Mexican government did not "immediately” stop all undocumented migrants.

The threat to close the border is one Mr. Trump has made and not followed through on before — he suggested closing it during the December government shutdown, and also earlier this week in accusing Central American governments of squandering American aid. But he has not yet attached a short time frame to taking such a drastic measure.

“This would be so easy for Mexico to do,” Mr. Trump said in a string of Twitter posts. “Besides, we lose so much money with them, especially when you add in drug trafficking etc.), that the Border closing would be a good thing!”

The president has also attached this round of threats to increasingly harsher language about the thousands of people who have tried to flee violence and poverty on their way to the United States.

The evening before Mr. Trump threatened to close the border, he appeared at a rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., where he went on an extensive and angry screed about immigration, calling the problem an “invasion” and referring to the plight of asylum seekers as a “big fat con job.”

Mr. Trump’s comments about the border come just as the White House is shifting its efforts squarely over to winning 2020 voters. The administration has only a nascent plan for health care, a deciding issue for voters, but the issue of undocumented immigration has always been red meat for his base.
Sign Up for On Politics With Lisa Lerer

A spotlight on the people reshaping our politics. A conversation with voters across the country. And a guiding hand through the endless news cycle, telling you what you really need to know.

It was not clear which parts of the border the president would close if Mr. Trump is not satisfied with the actions Mexico would take to tamp down on illegal border crossings.

Administration officials this week said the situation has become untenable. In a news conference in El Paso, Texas, on Wednesday, Kevin McAleenan, the commissioner of the federal Customs and Border Protection, said that an influx of migrants had reached a “breaking point.”

// posted by montag @ 1:47 PM 0 Comments

President Trump’s likely nominee for the Federal Reserve’s board of governors helped shape the deep tax cuts that were blamed for years of budget shortfalls under former Gov. Sam Brownback.

Trump announced on Twitter last week that he plans to nominate Stephen Moore, his 2016 campaign’s economic adviser, to the seven-member board of governors for the Federal Reserve, the independent agency which oversees monetary policy and regulates the banking industry.

The prospect of a seat on the Fed for Moore, a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation who has called for board chairman Jerome Powell to be fired, rankles Democrats. They see the former Wall Street Journal editorial board member as unqualified for the position.

“I think Moore was selected because Trump read an article or he saw him on TV and he liked him and that was as far as it went. I don’t see him as a qualified person to be on the Fed,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, which handles nominations to the board.

“This is essentially a lifetime… a years and years long appointment lasting through presidents. You don’t give these away lightly like Trump already has.”

Members of the board serve staggered 14-year terms. The most recent appointee, former Kansas Bank Commissioner Michelle Bowman, was confirmed by the Senate on a 64-34 vote last year.

Democrats will likely use Moore’s role in Brownback’s “real live experiment” against him even though the Fed does not directly deal with tax policy.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, pointed Tuesday to Moore’s role in shaping Trump’s 2017 tax cuts when he panned the likely nomination.

“Mr. Moore doesn’t have the background. He’s a politician. He’s political. He’s always wanted cut taxes, cut taxes, cut taxes. He’s one of the reasons we have such a big deficit now because of his advocacy,” Schumer said.

The White House declined to comment on Democratic criticism of Moore or say anything about the prospective nominee beyond the president’s initial tweet, which described Moore as a “very respected Economist.”

// posted by montag @ 1:25 PM 0 Comments

While most Senate Republicans are saying climate change is real, they’re struggling to come up with a comprehensive strategy for dealing with an issue that looms as a potential flashpoint in 2020 congressional election campaigns.

Most GOP senators agreed with Sen. Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican, who said “climate change is real. Humans contribute to climate change.”

But Republicans were wary of supporting any plan that sounds likely to expand the reach of government.

“We’re not going to recommend an alternative takeover by the government of the economy,” Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said, “but we should encourage innovation which will help clean the environment by providing incentives for that sort of research. It’s the same things we’ve always done.”

Another complication is that Republicans don’t agree on the scope of the climate change crisis.

“There are those that think the Green New Deal is a moral imperative and it may well be,” Roberts said. “But farmers feeding the world is also a moral imperative.”

Even if the GOP came up with a big plan, it would require an OK from President Donald Trump, who’s not sure what’s causing the problem.

“I think something’s happening. Something’s changing and it’ll change back again. I don’t think it’s a hoax, I think there’s probably a difference. But I don’t know that it’s man-made,” Trump told CBS’ “60 Minutes” in October.

Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, had similar thoughts.

“Most people on the alarmist side of this haven’t even thought this through at all,” he said. “I do know that all the people who blame everything on man have completely ignored the fact of what nature did before man.”

How to fight climate change is emerging as an important issue in 2020 congressional elections.

A December Quinnipiac University poll found 61 percent thought extreme weather events of the past few years are related to climate change. Two-thirds of those polled by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal that month said immediate or some action should be taken to curb climate change.

The issue is of particular concern to younger voters. About two-thirds of those 18 to 34 years old say climate change stands to have “a significant negative effect on the world” during their lives, well above the numbers registered for other age groups.

The issue could be particularly crucial in Democratic primaries. Quinnipiac found 92 percent of Democrats were very or somewhat concerned about climate change, compared to 36 percent of Republicans.

Republicans are defending vulnerable Senate seats in states hard-hit by those trends in recent years, notably Georgia, Colorado, North Carolina and Iowa. Democrats need a net gain of four seats next year to win control of the Senate, three if a Democratic presidential candidate wins.

In the House, where Republicans are likely to need a net gain of 18 seats to win control, they face tough races to regain four Democratic-held districts in New York, four more in New Jersey, three in Iowa and two in Virginia, all areas where climate change is an important topic.

The Democrats’ Green New Deal, spearheaded by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, is a series of broad goals meant to stem the impact of climate change. It has turned into a fierce political weapon for both parties.

// posted by montag @ 1:25 PM 0 Comments

During flight simulations recreating the problems with the doomed Lion Air plane, pilots discovered that they had less than 40 seconds to override an automated system on Boeing’s new jets and avert disaster.

The pilots tested a crisis situation similar to what investigators suspect went wrong in the Lion Air crash in Indonesia last fall. In the tests, a single sensor failed, triggering software designed to help prevent a stall.

Once that happened, the pilots had just moments to disengage the system and avoid an unrecoverable nose dive of the Boeing 737 Max, according to two people involved in the testing in recent days. Although the investigations are continuing, the automated system, known as MCAS, is a focus of authorities trying to determine what went wrong in the Lion Air disaster in October and the Ethiopian Airlines crash of the same Boeing model this month.

The software, as originally designed and explained, left little room for error. Those involved in the testing hadn’t fully understood just how powerful the system was until they flew the plane on a 737 Max simulator, according to the two people.

Compounding the flaws, pilots received limited training about the system before the first crash. During the final minutes, the captain of the Lion Air flight flipped through a technical manual trying to figure out what was happening.

In a tacit acknowledgment of the system’s problems, Boeing is expected to propose a software update that would give pilots more control over the system and make it less likely to trigger erroneously, according to three people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private meetings.

There are common procedures in place to counteract MCAS, as currently designed. If the system starts pushing the plane’s nose down, pilots can reverse the movement via a switch at their thumb, a typical reaction in that situation. In doing so, they can potentially extend the 40-second window, giving them more time to avoid a crash.

To fully neutralize the system, pilots would need to flip two more switches. That would shut off the electricity to a motor that allows the system to push the plane toward the ground. Then the pilots would need to crank a wheel to correct whatever problems had emerged.

The pilots, in the simulations, followed such procedures to successfully shut off the system and land safely. But they did so with a far better understanding of how it worked and prior knowledge that it would be triggered — benefits that the pilots of the fatal 737 Max crashes did not have.

If pilots don’t act hastily enough, attempts to disable the system can be too late. In the Lion Air crash, pilots used the thumb switch more than two dozen times to try to override the system. The system kept engaging nonetheless, most likely because of bad readings from a sensor, until the plane crashed into the Java Sea, killing all 189 people on board.

John Cox, an aviation safety consultant and a former 737 pilot, said pilots are highly likely to use the thumb switch to extend the 40-second window to several minutes. But that may still not be enough time to diagnose and solve the problem, especially if the pilots, like the Lion Air crew, were not informed of the system.

// posted by montag @ 1:53 PM 0 Comments