LOL .. Trump, weak under pressure, caves; wall's future uncertain
Rachel Maddow reports on a series of orders from Donald Trump to federal agencies this week that were ultimately reversed as Trump caved to pressure, and wonders about the future of Trump's wall when Americans learn he wants them to pay for it. Duration: 19:03
The president has to have created an executive order flip-flop record in his first week .. lolol .. it's about 1.5in. off the bottom of yours .. and this one ..
The Rachel Maddow Show 1/27/17
Trump ignores shameful holocaust lessons with refugee ban
is not much above the first one .. i think .. the fact that at least one green card holder on the way to the USA was taken off a plane was the first Aussi news piece i saw today.
Thanks, Rachel is great!
Looks the GOP will end up simply modifying Obamacare, and end up with most of Hillary's policy on the wall .. what in the long run will Trump voters be left with? .. maybe not much of his major promises .. maybe in the long run not much more than the individual himself, and there isn't much of good value there.
AfD politician banned from Holocaust memorial after Nazi comments
DPA/The Local news@thelocal.de
26 January 2017 17:23 CET+01:00
The former Buchenwald concentration camp, now a memorial site. Photo: DPA
A regional head of the right-wing AfD party has been banned from a Holocaust Memorial Day event after making a speech in which he called on Germany to end its culture of remembering Nazi crimes.
The former Buchenwald concentration camp will hold a remembrance ceremony on Friday, which will be attended by former prisoners of the camp as well as regional politicians.
"After his speech in Dresden, it is unacceptable for Mr Höcke to take part in the wreath-laying ceremony at the former Buchenwald concentration camp," the acting director of the site, Rikola-Gunnar Lüttgenau, said on Thursday.
He added that the "place and time" of the event - the memorial site and Germany's official Holocaust Memorial Day - were "central components of a public memory which Björn Höcke has defamed".
The president emeritus of the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation, Bertrand Herz, added: "We refuse to accept the appearance of those who downplay [the Holocaust] at the memorial at the site of our ordeal".
In Höcke's speech, he also condemned a former president who had encouraged the country to take responsibility for the Nazis' crimes, saying the former leader had spoken out “against his own people”.
But his party's leader, Frauke Petry, has also denounced the controversial speech.
“Björn Höcke has become a burden for the party, with his go-it-alone attitude and constant sniping,” she told weekly newspaper Junge Freiheit.
The AfD (Alternative for Germany) started in 2013 as a eurosceptic party, opposed to the single currency, but has shifted further to the right, gaining success in state parliaments over the past year through its anti-immigrant rhetoric amid the influx of refugees.
In this Majority Report clip, Sam Seder describes the anecdote that Trump told lawmakers which prompted him to become re-obsessed with voter fraud, and it is basically completely insane. Then we watch Carl Bernstein appear on CNN and say that in his 50 years of reporting, he's never experienced such a flood of discussion from lawmakers in a president's own party regarding the psychological fitness of the president.
Berlin mayor tells Donald Trump: 'Don't build this wall!' Thousands of people braved death to attempt to cross the border, which stood as a symbol for the Iron Curtain Berlin's mayor Michael Müller has turned Reagan's famous Cold War plea to Gorbachev to tear the wall down into a plea for Trump not to build one. A proposed wall along the US-Mexico border has strained bilateral relations. 28.01.2017 http://www.dw.com/en/berlin-mayor-michael-m%C3%BCller-tells-donald-trump-dont-build-this-wall/a-37311389
Mexican Jews alarmed by Netanyahu tweet on Trump’s wall A WORKER STANDS next to a newly built section of the US border fence at Sunland Park, New Mexico, opposite the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez, on Wednesday. Picture taken from the Mexico side of the border. Donors suspend contributions to Keren Hayesod; Foreign Ministry clarifies stance. 29 January 2017 http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Mexican-Jews-alarmed-by-Netanyahu-tweet-on-Trumps-wall-479964
Netanyahu in hot water over praise of Trump's wall FILE PHOTO: A labourer works on the border fence between Israel and Egypt near the Israeli village of Be'er Milcha September 6, 2012. FILE PHOTO: African would-be immigrants stand near the border fence between Israel and Egypt near the Israeli village of Be'er Milcha September 6, 2012. Jan 29, 2017 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-trump-mexico-idUSKBN15D0KV
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One Certainty of Trump’s Wall: Big Money In the past week, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said Congress would move ahead with plans to build the wall, estimating that it would cost $12 billion to $15 billion. Researchers at M.I.T. said last year that a 1,000-mile, 50-foot-high steel-and-concrete wall would run taxpayers about $40 billion. JAN. 28, 2017 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/28/business/mexico-border-wall-trump.html
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Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump The failing @nytimes has been wrong about me from the very beginning. Said I would lose the primaries, then the general election. FAKE NEWS! 8:04 AM - 28 Jan 2017 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/825328817833123840 [with (over 31,000) comments]
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump Thr coverage about me in the @nytimes and the @washingtonpost gas been so false and angry that the times actually apologized to its..... 8:08 AM - 28 Jan 2017 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/825329757646618624 [with (over 22,000) comments]
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump ...dwindling subscribers and readers.They got me wrong right from the beginning and still have not changed course, and never will. DISHONEST 8:16 AM - 28 Jan 2017 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/825331665509691393 [with (over 36,000) comments]
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NYTCo Communications @NYTimesComm .@realDonaldTrump Fact check: @nytimes subscribers & audience at all-time highs. Supporting independent journalism matters. 8:57 AM - 28 Jan 2017 https://twitter.com/NYTimesComm/status/825341956616310787 [with comments]
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Margaret Sullivan @Sulliview Margaret Sullivan Retweeted NYTCo Communications [just above] Subscriptions also spiking at now-profitable @washingtonpost, where the audience is bigger than ever (and the facts aren't alternative). 1:51 PM - 28 Jan 2017 https://twitter.com/Sulliview/status/825416110417797120 [with comments]
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Wild Child Takes Charge
President Trump struggling to pull the cap off a pen as he signed an executive action to order the construction of a wall at the border with Mexico. Doug Mills/The New York Times
By Maureen Dowd JAN. 28, 2017
WASHINGTON — So now we’re getting the crazy straight up.
The Doomsday Clock is ticking faster, the resistance is growing, and teetotaler Donald Trump already seems drunk with power.
He’s got the role of his life and he’s casting his show: Steve Bannon is his Roy Cohn, the combative hammer and agitprop genius; Theresa May is Maggie to his Ronnie; Ivanka and Jared are his consiglieri, family to help him figure out who stays and who gets iced; Vladimir Putin echoes the role of Trump’s dad, Fred, who was supremely aggressive and calculating, cool where Donald was hot, someone who believed the world was divided into killers and losers. (But in Putin’s case, it’s literal.)
It took us years to find out that Richard Nixon was swilling Scotch, eating dog biscuits, talking to the White House portraits and blowing up the Vietnam peace talks in 1968 to help his election bid. It took us years to find out that, despite that deep, reassuring voice, Dick Cheney was a demented megalomaniac.
But with President Trump, it’s all right out there — the tantrums, the delusions, the deceptions, the self-doubts and overcompensation.
If the last president was too above the fray, this one is the fray. We’ve gone from no drama to all drama, a high ethical standard to no ethical standard.
Those who go into the Oval Office with chips on their shoulders and deep wells of insecurity, like Nixon, W. and Donald Trump, are not going to suddenly glow with self-assurance. The White House tends to bring out paranoia and insecurity.
Still, it was stunning how fast it got weird. To Trump biographer Tim O’Brien, the new president conjured the image of “a guy on a pogo stick in the Rose Garden bouncing around with a TV remote control in his hand trying to decide what to respond to in the next 30 seconds on Twitter.”
The White House “is distilling Donald to his essence,” says another biographer, Michael D’Antonio. “If he could have commanded the attention of the world media every day of his life in the past he would have. The fact that the press corps is captive in the White House and can be dragged into these executive order signings is, for him, like mainlining heroin.
“He has hit his stride and is thrilled with this. The only thing that torments him is the disapproval of The New York Times. Every story that is critical of him hurts.”
The former reality star who now denies reality rode the resentment of the aggrieved white working class to the Oval Office and bashes the press but, as D’Antonio says, “he wants the elites’ approval and is always enraged when he doesn’t get it.”
Instead of basking in the most unlikely victory in modern history, President Trump spiraled into a bizarre, Freudian obsession about whether the crowd on the Mall for his inaugural speech was as big as President Obama’s in 2009.
When the National Park Service retweeted a picture comparing the crowds of the two presidents, showing unoccupied swaths at Trump’s, the Trump administration punished the trolling resisters at the park service by shutting down their Twitter account for the night.
Then President Trump went to the C.I.A. and, instead of apologizing for comparing the intelligence community to Nazi Germany, continued to whinge about the “dishonest” media’s coverage of his crowd size.
Later in the day, agitated by that and by the remarkable swell of women’s marches with their pink-hat contempt for him — around the world and outside his window — President Trump brushed off the advisers trying to calm him down and sent Sean Spicer rushing out to hotly confront the press and offer his now infamous alternative facts.
Now the president is home alone, signing executive orders banning all Syrians in the middle of their devastating war and others from Muslim countries in a document that will come to be seen as a stain on our country and will only serve as a recruiting tool for jihadis. This, while he’s telling The Times’ Maggie Haberman that he loves the “beautiful phones [ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/us/politics/president-trump-white-house.html ]” in the White House and has limited TV time in the morning because his meetings start at 9.
“He is really a unique creature,” D’Antonio says. “He’s transfixing, riveting, really. It’s hard to take your eyes off him.”
I ask the biographer if he’s as nervous as everyone else, and he says yes.
“Donald’s manic without being depressive,” he muses. “The only thing you can do is keep him distracted for a day and then one more day so that he doesn’t do anything disastrous.”
Just like Obama and May, D’Antonio says, “a lot of people over the years have tried to mollify him and accommodate him day by day. And eventually you get a year behind you. Everybody else wants stability, but he thrives in turmoil.”
Trump's Voter-Fraud Source Embarrassed On CNN, Offers NO PROOF OF FRAUD Whatsoever
Published on Jan 29, 2017 by The Majority Report with Sam Seder
In this Majority Report clip, we watch a CNN segment with Chris Cuomo and Gregg Phillips, a guy from Texas who claims—despite all studies and evidence very much to the contrary—that he can prove that there were more than 3 million fraudulent votes cast in the 2016 presidential election. Donald Trump not only aware of this guy, who won't release any findings for months, but he's tweeted about him and is possibly basing his rantings about voter fraud on this guy's claims.
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump Somebody with aptitude and conviction should buy the FAKE NEWS and failing @nytimes and either run it correctly or let it fold with dignity! 8:00 AM - 29 Jan 2017 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/825690087857995776 [with (over 35,000) comments]
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God @TheGoodGodAbove God Retweeted Donald J. Trump [just above] I still remember when Hitler had his friends buy all the media outlets so he couldn't be criticized anymore. 3:50 PM - 29 Jan 2017 https://twitter.com/TheGoodGodAbove/status/825808245159817216 [with comments]
U Ko Ni, a Prominent Muslim Lawyer in Myanmar, Is Fatally Shot Police and security officers guarding the scene where U Ko Ni, a prominent Muslim lawyer and adviser to Myanmar’s leader, was fatally shot on Sunday at Yangon International Airport. Ko Ni, a prominent member of Myanmar’s Muslim minority and legal adviser for Myanmar’s ruling National League for Democracy, is seen during an interview in Yangon last January. JAN. 29, 2017 YANGON, Myanmar — U Ko Ni, a prominent human rights lawyer and a legal adviser to Myanmar [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/myanmar/index.html ]’s leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi [ https://www.nytimes.com/topic/person/daw-aung-san-suu-kyi ], was fatally shot at Yangon International Airport on Sunday. Mr. Ko Ni, 65, a Muslim and a member of the ruling National League for Democracy, was returning from Indonesia with about 20 other government officials and civic leaders, who had traveled there as part of a government-organized trip to discuss democracy and conflict resolution. He was shot in the head at close range as he was about to leave the airport in his family car, according to witnesses. “During the shooting, he was holding his grandchild,” said U Aung Myint Oo, an airport security [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/a/airport_security/index.html ] guard. “He fell down bleeding on the ground and died on the spot.” As the gunman tried to flee, he shot and killed a taxi driver, U Ne Win, who had tried to stop him. Other taxi drivers detained the gunman until the police arrived and arrested him, seizing two handguns. He was identified by police as U Kyi Lin from Mandalay, Myanmar. According to taxi drivers who witnessed the attack, the gunman shouted, “You can’t act like that,” before opening fire. The police were seen searching the house of Mr. Kyi Lyn in a neighborhood of Mandalay. No motive for the killing has been given. Mr. Ko Ni was one of the best-known Muslims in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, serving as a legal adviser to the National League for Democracy. He was the author of six books on human rights issues and democratic elections, and was actively involved in the interfaith peace movement. “It seems the gunman knew the exact time of his arrival and was waiting to shoot him,” said a member of the team who traveled with Mr. Ko Ni to Indonesia, and who spoke on the condition of anonymity over concern for his safety. “I was shocked and scared. It is unsafe here.” A spokesman for the National League for Democracy, U Win Htein, said during a telephone interview from Naypyidaw, Myanmar’s capital, that Mr. Ko Ni was a key adviser in recent years to Ms. Suu Kyi, the former opposition leader turned leader of Myanmar [ https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/14/world/asia/myanmar-aung-san-suu-kyi-sanctions.html ], on constitutional amendments. “His assassination was a big blow to the National League for Democracy, and it would be very difficult for us to replace him,” Mr. Win Htein said. “We lost a hero. It is a bad situation here.” Amnesty International, which worked with Mr. Ko Ni on human rights issues in Myanmar, called for an independent investigation into his death. “The killing of prominent lawyer U Ko Ni in Yangon today is an appalling act that has all the hallmarks of an assassination,” Josef Benedict, the organization’s deputy campaigns director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, said in a statement. [...] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/29/world/asia/myanmar-u-ko-ni-yangon-assassination-daw-aung-san-suu-kyi.html
The danger of Steve Bannon on the National Security Council By David J. Rothkopf January 29, 2017 While demonstrators poured into airports [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/refugees-detained-at-us-airports-challenge-trumps-executive-order/2017/01/28/e69501a2-e562-11e6-a547-5fb9411d332c_story.html ] to protest the Trump administration’s draconian immigration policies, another presidential memorandum signed this weekend may have even more lasting, wide-ranging and dangerous consequences. The document sounds like a simple bureaucratic shuffle, outlining the shape the National Security Council will take under President Trump. Instead, it is deeply worrisome. The idea of the National Security Council (NSC), established in 1947, is to ensure that the president has the best possible advice from his Cabinet, the military and the intelligence community before making consequential decisions, and to ensure that, once those decisions are made, a centralized mechanism exists to guarantee their effective implementation. The NSC is effectively the central nervous system of the U.S. foreign policy and national security apparatus. Trump’s memorandum [ https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/28/presidential-memorandum-organization-national-security-council-and ] described the structure of his NSC — not unusual given that the exact composition shifts in modest ways from administration to administration. The problem lies in the changes that he made. First, he essentially demoted the highest-ranking military officer in the United States, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the highest-ranking intelligence officer in the United States, the director of national intelligence. In previous administrations, those positions or their equivalent (before the creation of the director of national intelligence, the CIA director occupied that role) held permanent positions on the NSC. Now, those key officials will be invited only when their specific expertise is seen to be required. Hard as it is to imagine any situation in which their views would not add value, this demotion is even harder to countenance given the threats the United States currently faces and the frayed state of the president’s relations with the intelligence community. A president who has no national security experience and can use all the advice he can get has decided to limit the input he receives from two of the most important advisers any president could have. The president compounded this error of structure with an error of judgment that should send shivers down the spine of every American and our allies worldwide. Even as he pushed away professional security advice, Trump decided to make [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-holds-calls-with-putin-leaders-from-europe-and-asia/2017/01/28/42728948-e574-11e6-a547-5fb9411d332c_story.html ] his top political advisor, Stephen K. Bannon, a permanent member of the NSC. Although the White House chief of staff is typically a participant in NSC deliberations, I do not know of another situation in which a political adviser has been a formal permanent member of the council. Further, Bannon is the precisely wrong person for this wrong role. His national security experience consists of a graduate degree and seven years in the Navy. More troubling, Bannon’s role as chairman of Breitbart.com, with its racist, misogynist and Islamophobic perspectives, and his avowed desire to blow up our system of government, suggests this is someone who not only has no business being a permanent member of the most powerful consultative body in the world — he has no business being in a position of responsibility in any government. Worse still, it is a sign of other problems to come. Organizing the NSC this way does not reflect well on national security advisor Michael Flynn — whether the bad decision is a result of his lack of understanding of what the NSC should do or because he is giving in to pressure from his boss. Moreover, elevating Bannon is a sign that there will be more than one senior official in Trump’s inner circle with top-level national security responsibility, an arrangement nearly certain to create confusion going forward. Indeed, rumors are already circulating that Bannon and senior adviser Jared Kushner are the go-to people on national security issues for the administration, again despite the lack of experience, temperament or institutional support for either. Kushner has been given key roles on Israel, Mexico and China already. History suggests all this will not end well, with rivalries emerging with State, Defense, the Trade Representative and other agencies. Combine all this with the president’s own shoot-from-the-lip impulses, his flair for improvisation and his well-known thin skin. You end up with a bad NSC structure being compromised by a kitchen cabinet-type superstructure and the whole thing likely being made even more dysfunctional by a president who, according to multiple reports, does not welcome advice in the first place — especially when it contradicts his own views. The executive order on immigration and refugees was un-American, counterproductive and possibly illegal. The restructuring of the NSC, and the way in which this White House is threatening to operate outside the formal NSC structure, all but guarantees that it will not be the last bad decision to emerge from the Trump administration. David J. Rothkopf is chief executive and editor of the FP Group, which publishes Foreign Policy magazine. He has written two histories of the NSC, “Running the World [ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1586484230 ]” and last year’s “National Insecurity [ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1610396332 ].” https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-danger-of-steve-bannon-on-the-national-security-council/2017/01/29/ba3982a2-e663-11e6-bf6f-301b6b443624_story.html [with embedded videos, and comments]
The man behind Trump? Still Steve Bannon Says one insider of Steve Bannon: “He’s telling Trump that he can do everything he said he would do on the campaign trail." In the 10 days since the inauguration, Bannon has rapidly amassed power in the West Wing. 01/29/17 Updated 01/30/17 As protests erupted around the country late Saturday in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration, many of his key White House staff left for the black-tie Alfalfa Club dinner—but not his top adviser, Stephen Bannon, who stayed behind at the White House with the president, according to a senior White House official. In the 10 days since Trump’s inauguration, Bannon — the former head of Breitbart News — has rapidly amassed power in the West Wing, eclipsing chief of staff Reince Priebus, who was among those at the Alfalfa Club event. Along with charting the early direction of the Trump administration, he’s been named to a seat on the National Security Council, giving him a part in the nation’s most sensitive intelligence operations. [...] http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/donald-trump-steve-bannon-234347 [with comments]
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Breaking: Democrats Admit to Using 3 Million Illegals to Steal Election
Published on Jan 29, 2017 by The Alex Jones Channel
On this LIVE Sunday, Jan. 29 edition of the Alex Jones Show, we discuss Trump’s temporary immigration ban, the freakout over it by the far left, and how it’s not much different than a similar ban former President Obama enacted before. We also look into how it’s not a Muslim ban at all considering that the majority of Muslim countries in the world are unaffected by it. And we loo into the sanctuary city showdown between Austin, Texas, and Gov. Greg Abbott. http://www.infowars.com/trump-sets-5-year-and-lifetime-lobbying-ban-for-officials/
One of the best things is the fact that we can now say “President Trump.”
Fawning media pundits and those armies of liberals who worship propriety will use the term “president” to address his predecessor; however, he is just “Obama,” plain and simple. It’s good to be rid of him. Now the real work can be done.
The primary focus of the American people from a perspective of priorities should be to convince the president to rally the Congress on one hand, and to use executive orders on the other to reverse the damage done by Obama over the past eight years. This is where it will take the American citizens to get the ball rolling on this. For those who may think it cannot be done, look at Prohibition. That heinous law was repealed, and in this light so can the evils pushed through Congress when the Democrats controlled it and the bureaucratic and executive fiats ramrodded upon us also may be negated. http://www.infowars.com/trump-cant-do-it-all-alone-six-things-americans-must-do-to-make-real-change-happen/
How can I have effective prayers? Prayer is something that every Christian knows they need to do but very few Christians have successful prayer lives and so they have to depend on the man of God or other believers. January 29, 2017 https://www.thestandard.co.zw/2017/01/29/can-effective-prayers/ [no comments yet]
Koch brothers network aims to raise $300M to $400M for conservative causes Jan. 28, 2017 Updated Jan. 29, 2017 INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — The leaders of the powerful network aligned with billionaires Charles and David Koch aim to raise and spend between $300 million and $400 million over the next two years to advance their free-market policy and political agenda, officials said Saturday. The target, announced at the opening of the network’s annual winter gathering for donors, marks a substantial increase from the $250 million the network spent to influence political battles in the 2016 election and help Republicans retain their grip on the Senate. Although Charles Koch refused to throw his political might behind President Trump’s candidacy, his top political operatives on Saturday signaled support for some of Trump’s actions during the first week of his presidency and a willingness to collaborate with his administration on other top Koch priorities, such as repealing the 2010 Affordable Care Act “There’s been some good things, for sure,” top Koch official Mark Holden said of Trump’s early actions, singling out the new president’s move to cut federal regulation and revive the stalled Keystone XL Pipeline, designed to take oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast. “A focus on less government ... is the way to go,” Holden said. “So, hopefully, the regulatory environment will improve.” The early signs of optimism from the Koch camp about Trump’s presidency are a sharp departure from the tone that Charles Koch struck during the early days of the presidential campaign. Koch, an industrialist who is one of the world’s richest men, sharply criticized some of Trump’s rhetoric and policies during the election. At one point, he described Trump’s proposed Muslim registry as “reminiscent of Nazi Germany.” On Saturday, Koch aides reserved early judgment about Trump’s move Friday to temporarily bar entry to visitors from several predominantly Muslim countries. In a statement, Brian Hooks, who oversees the network's seminar with Holden, said the "rhetoric is extremely troubling," but said it would take some to evaluate Trump's executive order to deliver a "thoughtful response." Koch officials also pointed to an area of potential contention: Trump’s apparent embrace this week of a 20% tax on imported goods. Trump aides said he was considering the border tax, first proposed by House Republicans, as one of several options to finance his pledge to build wall along the southern border with Mexico. Americans for Prosperity officials slammed the border tax Friday in a letter to the leaders of the House tax-writing committee, saying it would drive up the cost of consumer goods. The Kochs' fundraising announcement came as the Koch brothers and more than 550 ultra-wealthy donors in their network gathered for their first summit since the election to hash through their priorities. The network is one of the most powerful forces in conservative politics with an annual budget and staff that rivals the Republican Party's — and has its own for-profit data and marketing branches to identify voters and spread the Kochs’ libertarian-influenced brand of free-market conservatism. Although the Kochs did not engage in the presidential campaign, the network spent heavily to help the Republican Party retain its control of the Senate and to shape state and local races across the country. Seven of the eight Senate candidates the Kochs backed won. "We've had, by far, the most productive year in the history of this network," Koch told the donors early Saturday evening, as they sipped cocktails in a palm-fringed courtyard at the Renaissance Resort and Spa. He urged them to do more to achieve the network's vision of "advancing the country toward a brighter future now, while the opportunity is available." "We may not have an opportunity again like we have today," he added. Organizers say the gathering is the largest since the network began holding seminars in 2003. Seminar attendees must commit to giving at least $100,000 annually to the network to support the array of groups that promote their agenda Network spokesman James Davis said 200 of those assembled were first-time attendees. The three-day gathering, organized under the theme “A Time to Lead” will emphasize some of the network’s top priorities, including promoting what officials call “free-speech” on college campuses and projects aimed at supporting anti-poverty, up-by-the-bootstraps programs. [...] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/01/28/charles-koch-donor-summit/97185948/ [with comments]
Will Trump shock drive Germany back into arms of Merkel?
Hitler anniversary sees US president walk similar line between leadership, seduction, entrapment
Sat, Jan 28, 2017, 06:00 Derek Scally
An outspoken head of state from 1994 to 1999, Roman Herzog is best remembered for warning in 1997: “Germany needs a jolt”. Above, German Chancellor Angela Merkel pays her respects at his state funeral this week. Photograph: Max Menning-Pool/Getty Images
This is also the month when, 75 years ago, senior Nazi officials and bureaucrats gathered for an infamous meeting on Berlin’s Wannsee lake, and the wheels on an industrialised murder machine began to turn.
January 27th, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1945, has been International Holocaust Remembrance Day since 2006. A decade previously, Germany initiated January 27th as its own national day of remembrance for Nazi victims.
Jolt
This week Germany bid farewell to the man who initiated that anniversary, former president Roman Herzog .. http://www.irishtimes.com/search/search-7.1213540?tag_person=Roman%20Herzog&article=true . An outspoken head of state from 1994 to 1999, Mr Herzog is best remembered for warning in 1997: “Germany needs a jolt”. It was a statesmanlike way of warning a sclerotic, reform-shy, angst-ridden republic that it needed a kick up the backside.
“It’s not the ideas we lack, but the determination to implement them,” he said. “Europe, too, needs a jolt.”
But who will administer it? All eyes are on one woman, Chancellor Angela Merkel .. http://www.irishtimes.com/search/search-7.1213540?tag_person=Angela%20Merkel&article=true . She faces re-election in September and, in an indication of how the last years have reweighted European politics, this German federal poll has never had such far-reaching consequences for the rest of us.
A serious attack – Islamist, cyber or both – could only help the AfD. So, for the next eight months, Angela Merkel is driving by sight: eyes open, mouth shut.
But, perhaps to position herself as anti-Trump, she couldn’t resist sending a series of subtle messages in the direction of the Oval Office
It was Angela Merkel who, hours after Mr Trump’s electoral victory, offered him a conditional co-operation “on the basis of our shared values”.
As President Trump took office, hammering out policy in 140 Twitter characters or less, Dr Merkel noted – somewhat maliciously – how the late President Herzog, himself a provocative orator, also had a gift for “knowing when to remain silent”.
When the Trump White House opened for business on a cloud of “alternative facts”, Dr Merkel warned against “granting nebulous claims more credence than scientific facts”.
Voters, she said this week, could only be won over in the long term “with facts instead of fakes”.
“We all know the word post-factual . . . thinking of a topic more in emotional terms,” added Dr Merkel, a scientist-turned-politician. “But when the mood counts more than the facts, then . . . we are facing a crisis of reasoning.”
Aware that the mood is hardening towards her at home, and that the new US president views her refugee policy as “catastrophic”, Angela Merkel is facing her most challenging year yet.
She has dismissed as “grotesque” the idea that, as German chancellor, she is now the leader of the liberal free world. It’s an understandable allergy given the burdened historical record of previous leadership attempts from here, from Hitler back to the Prussian kings and German emperors entombed beneath her feet in the crypt of Berlin cathedral.
The beginning of the end came two decades ago when President Herzog delivered his “jolt” speech at the opening of the rebuilt, five-star Adlon Hotel .. http://www.irishtimes.com/search/search-7.1213540?tag_company=Adlon%20Hotel&article=true . Located opposite the Brandenburg Gate, it is one of many symbolic buildings that marked the return of Berlin to the world’s political map.
Some 20 years after his “jolt”, few remember the rest of Mr Herzog’s far-sighted, prophetic address. In it, he predicted that this new Germany – and, with it, the new Europe – would succeed or fail in its new “Berlin laboratory”.
“In Berlin the future is being shaped,” he said. “In times of existential challenges, the only winners will be those who are prepared to lead.”
As the new US president takes office, Germans look on in alarm at a man they see walking the fine line between leadership, seduction and entrapment. Like no one else, Germans know the catastrophic cost of crossing that line. This year we will find out whether Germans’ fear of Trump trumps their fear of leadership.
"Obama’s DOJ Fought Texas Voter ID Law. Trump’s New Civil Rights Chief Offered Tips On Writing It. That’s not a great sign for voting rights protection."
FILE - In this Feb. 26, 2014 file photo, an election official checks a voter’s photo identification at an early voting polling site in Austin, Texas. A federal judge Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2017, again threw out Texas’ voter ID requirements that she previously compared to a “poll tax” on minorities, dealing another court setback to state Republican leaders over voting rights. (Eric Gay, File/Associated Press)