QUOTATION OF THE DAY
"Save yourselves. You know that everyone has left you alone to face your doom（破滅） and have offered you no help."
THE SYRIAN GOVERNMENT, in leaflets dropped over eastern Aleppo urging residents to flee（逃げる）.

NOVEMBER 30, 2016

（１）トランプ
・Steven Mnuchin Is Donald Trump’s Expected Choice for Treasury Secretary
Mr. Mnuchin, a longtime Trump acquaintance, is a former Goldman Sachs partner who has worked in hedge funds and Hollywood finance and has no government experience.
・Tom Price, H.H.S. Nominee, Drafted Remake of Health Law
Mr. Price’s bill, the Empowering Patients First Act, would weaken many consumer protections in the Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s signature domestic achievement.
・Trump to Announce Carrier Plant Will Keep Jobs in U.S.
Reversing a plan the president-elect had assailed（襲う）, the company will keep roughly half of the 2,000 manufacturing jobs in Indiana that it was to shift to Mexico.

（２）Chapecoense Soccer Team’s Plane Crashes, Leaving Brazil Devastated
Few survivors have been found among the 77 on the chartered flight taking the team to a game in Medellín, Colombia. The crash came as fans across Brazil had been reveling in the team’s performance.

（３）Despite Climate Change Vow, China Pushes to Dig More Coal
China is reopening mines amid worries about power supplies, demonstrating how difficult it will be to wean（悪癖を捨てさせる） its giant economy from coal dependence.

（４）French Election Hints at a European Shift Toward Russia
François Fillon’s victory in a presidential primary suggests that a shift from confrontation to accommodation of Moscow has already begun in the region.

（５）Mr. Trump, Meet the Constitution
Why is the president-elect afraid of free speech?
When Donald Trump, hand on the Bible on Jan. 20, swears to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, we the people will have good reason to doubt he knows what he’s talking about. Consider what he tweeted out on Tuesday（11月29日にツイッターにトランプが書いたこと）: “Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag - if they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!” Here’s where we explain what shouldn’t need explaining. Flag-burning is constitutionally protected speech. The Supreme Court has made this clear, in a ruling joined by Mr. Trump’s favorite justice, Antonin Scalia. It’s popular to want to punish flag-burners — pandering（迎合する） politicians, including Hillary Clinton, have tried. But the First Amendment exists to protect unpopular, even repulsive forms of expression. As the Supreme Court said in a 1990 decision finding a federal law against flag-burning unconstitutional, “Punishing desecration（冒涜） of the flag dilutes（薄める） the very freedom that makes this emblem so revered, and worth revering.” It’s interesting that so many of the people who are eager to punish flag-burners, like Mr. Trump, are at the same time so untroubled by speech that offends minorities, women and other Americans. They rail（罵る） against any concern about that kind of speech as “political correctness.” But in this country, flag-burning is about as politically incorrect as anything you can do. Where is their courageous defense of speech now? Isn’t Mr. Trump the man who stood up for the freedom to say brutally unpleasant things? Who said, at the Republican convention: “I will present the facts plainly and honestly. We cannot afford to be so politically correct anymore.” The court, by the way, has also declared that citizenship cannot be stripped（取り除く） away, not by Congress or the president, not in this democracy. Some may choose to read Mr. Trump’s social-media rants（暴言を吐く） as relatively meaningless — the ramblings（ぶらぶら歩く） of a sleepless id, unmoored（抜錨する） from thought or knowledge but tuned to Fox News, which apparently was airing a piece on college flag-burners at about the time Mr. Trump sent his tweet. But we don’t have the luxury（享楽） of merely mocking someone who is now as powerful as Mr. Trump. Before you tune him out, remember what the right-wing propaganda site Breitbart was celebrating on Tuesday — that Mr. Trump’s social-media presence allows him to get his message to millions, bypassing（回避する） “corporate media.” He has more than 16 million Twitter followers. With Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, he can feed lies and ignorance directly to 36 million people. He tweets, he posts, he incites. He trolls（褒めたたえる）. He commands a global platform and will soon be America’s commander in chief. But it has to be said, and said again: This is not normal. It demeans（品位を落とす） the presidency.