Author Archives: News Sources

The media must confront President Trump on climate change

Oliver Milman writes: Imagine the world was facing upheaval on a scale not seen during modern civilization, a change that would imperil the world’s great cities by the rising seas and snuff out species at at the fastest rate since the dinosaurs disappeared. Then imagine you were a journalist, had repeated chances to ask the next president of the United States about this and decided to not do so.

The apparent failure of the media during the presidential election has been multifaceted and fiercely debated. But the absence of climate change as a leading topic in the election of Donald Trump is perhaps the single greatest rebuke to the idea that power should be held to account for the benefit of this and future generations.

This failure was most apparent during the presidential debates, where four-and-a-half hours of television saw not one moderator question pitched to Trump or Hillary Clinton on climate change. It was left to Ken Bone, he of the red sweater and brief internet fame, to come closest with a question about coal mining.

The mind-boggling consequences of unchecked climate change, which is essentially what Trump proposes by denying the problem exists, dwarfed every other issue – yes, including emails – discussed during the debates. And yet it wasn’t raised. It was the equivalent of getting an exclusive interview with Churchill and Roosevelt in 1942 and not asking them about the war. [Continue reading…]

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Russian warships arrive off Syrian coast ahead of ‘final’ assault on Aleppo

The Telegraph reports: A flotilla of Russian warships arrived off the coast of Syria on Saturday, readying for a large-scale land and sea assault on the city of Aleppo.

The eight-strong battle group, led by Moscow’s only aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov and accompanied by a nuclear-powered missile cruiser, had provocatively travelled through the English Channel to reach the eastern Mediterranean.

Sergei Artamonov, commander of the Kuznetsov, confirmed to Russia-1 television station via videolink on Saturday that aircraft were already taking off from the ship’s deck for reconnaissance flights.

“Flights are being carried out from the deck… they are working on coordination with the shore port,” he said.

Asked whether foreign aircraft were flying over the ships, Vladislav Malakhovsky, commander of the Peter the Great missile cruiser, said: “they are afraid to come closer than 50 kilometres away, realising very well how powerful the nuclear cruiser is.”

The warships will be deployed to the Mediterranean for at least six months, the pro-government Syrian website al-Masdar News reported, quoting a military source. [Continue reading…]

The New York Times reports: The United Nations implored all sides in the Syria conflict on Thursday to allow food deliveries to rebel-held eastern Aleppo, where roughly 250,000 residents, under siege for months, just received their last rations.

Russia appeared to reject the plea.

“I don’t think anybody wants a quarter of a million people to be starving in east Aleppo,” Jan Egeland, the United Nations official in charge of a humanitarian task force for Syria, told reporters at the organization’s Geneva headquarters.

Food supplies have not been replenished in eastern Aleppo since mid-July, Mr. Egeland said. “The last food rations are being distributed as we speak,” he said. “There will not be more to distribute next week.” [Continue reading…]

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Trump’s appointees will set course of his presidency

The New York Times reports: “Busy day planned in New York,” President-elect Donald J. Trump said on Twitter on Friday morning, two days after his astonishing victory. “Will soon be making some very important decisions on the people who will be running our government!”

If anything, that understates the gravity of the personnel choices Mr. Trump and his transition team are weighing.

Rarely in the history of the American presidency has the exercise of choosing people to fill jobs had such a far-reaching impact on the nature and priorities of an incoming administration. Unlike most new presidents, Mr. Trump comes into office with no elective-office experience, no coherent political agenda and no bulging binder of policy proposals. And he has left a trail of inflammatory, often contradictory, statements on issues from immigration and race to terrorism and geopolitics.

In such a chaotic environment, serving a president who is in many ways a tabula rasa, the appointees to key White House jobs like chief of staff and cabinet posts like secretary of state, defense secretary and Treasury secretary could wield outsize influence. Their selection will help determine whether the Trump administration governs like the firebrand Mr. Trump was on the campaign trail or the pragmatist he often appears to be behind closed doors. [Continue reading…]

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General Services Administration, a federal agency doing business with Trump, is trying to avoid a massive conflict of interest

BuzzFeed reports: For the first time, federal officials have acknowledged a potential conflict of interest that faces incoming president Donald Trump over his high-profile hotel deal with the United States government. And the federal agency that’s involved wants to talk to Trump’s transition team about it before he takes the oath of office.

In 2012, the General Services Administration agreed to lease the Old Post Office Building — a landmark building just blocks from the White House — to Trump’s organization so that the mogul could turn it into a luxury hotel. In the complicated 109-page lease, Trump is required to pay the GSA $3 million a year plus a portion of his revenue, and he has to abide by a complex set of restrictions regarding what he can do and how he can build.

But once Trump becomes president, he will have authority over the GSA and will be able to fire its administrator at will, raising profound issues of a conflict.

Questioned about that conflict, a GSA spokesperson sent a statement to BuzzFeed News: “Prior to Mr. Trump taking the oath of office, GSA plans to coordinate with the President-elect’s transition team to allow a plan to be put in place to identify and address any potential conflict of interest relating to the Old Post Office building.”

Trump spokesperson Hope Hicks did not respond to emailed questions about the matter. [Continue reading…]

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Bitter infighting could cripple Trump’s administration before it ever gets off the ground

Politico reports: The bitter infighting that plagued Donald Trump’s campaign during the Republican presidential primary is starting to spill over into his team’s efforts to establish an administration and political operation, according to more than half a dozen sources familiar with the planning efforts.

The tensions played a role in a Friday shakeup in which the president-elect replaced his transition team chief Chris Christie with his running mate Mike Pence. Sources familiar with the move say it was precipitated partly by clashes between Christie’s allies and rival factions on the transition team, as well as Trump’s influential son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Those rifts and others are complicating what was an already a herculean task for Trump’s team: building a massive new government for a man who has never held public office.

“It’s the same situation as in the primary – everyone has the knives out for each other,” said a Republican operative who worked with the campaign and is now advising people on the transition team.

Asked about the tensions, and about Kushner’s role in the leadership change at the transition team, Trump spokesman Jason Miller said, “Anybody seeing today’s news about the appointment of Vice President-elect Mike Pence to run the Presidential Transition Team realizes that President-elect Donald J. Trump is serious about changing Washington whether the town likes it or not. This might ruffle the delicate sensitivities of the well-heeled two-martini lunch set, but President-elect Trump isn’t fighting for them, he’s fighting for the hard-working men and women outside the Beltway who don’t care for insider bickering.”

It’s not uncommon for rivalries to emerge inside campaigns and administrations as advisers jockey to place allies in key roles and advance their policy priorities. But the level of internecine conflict during Trump’s drive toward the GOP nomination was so extreme that it sometimes resulted in conflicting directives for even simple hiring and spending decisions.

People who witnessed that infighting up close see signs of similar patterns emerging, with some of the same players involved. And they fear that the dynamic could cripple Trump’s operation before it ever gets off the ground, since launching an administration requires hiring thousands of employees and setting up far more intricate chains of command than those in place during Trump’s bare-bones presidential campaign. [Continue reading…]

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Autocracy: Rules for survival

Masha Gessen writes: “Thank you, my friends. Thank you. Thank you. We have lost. We have lost, and this is the last day of my political career, so I will say what must be said. We are standing at the edge of the abyss. Our political system, our society, our country itself are in greater danger than at any time in the last century and a half. The president-elect has made his intentions clear, and it would be immoral to pretend otherwise. We must band together right now to defend the laws, the institutions, and the ideals on which our country is based.”

That, or something like that, is what Hillary Clinton should have said on Wednesday. Instead, she said, resignedly,

We must accept this result and then look to the future. Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead. Our constitutional democracy enshrines the peaceful transfer of power. We don’t just respect that. We cherish it. It also enshrines the rule of law; the principle [that] we are all equal in rights and dignity; freedom of worship and expression. We respect and cherish these values, too, and we must defend them.

Hours later, President Barack Obama was even more conciliatory:

We are now all rooting for his success in uniting and leading the country. The peaceful transition of power is one of the hallmarks of our democracy. And over the next few months, we are going to show that to the world….We have to remember that we’re actually all on one team.

The president added, “The point, though, is that we all go forward with a presumption of good faith in our fellow citizens, because that presumption of good faith is essential to a vibrant and functioning democracy.” As if Donald Trump had not conned his way into hours of free press coverage, as though he had released (and paid) his taxes, or not brazenly denigrated our system of government, from the courts and Congress, to the election process itself — as if, in other words, he had not won the election precisely by acting in bad faith.

Similar refrains were heard from various members of the liberal commentariat, with Tom Friedman vowing, “I am not going to try to make my president fail,” to Nick Kristof calling on “the approximately 52 percent majority of voters who supported someone other than Donald Trump” to “give president Trump a chance.” Even the politicians who have in the past appealed to the less-establishment part of the Democratic electorate sounded the conciliatory note. Senator Elizabeth Warren promised to “put aside our differences.” Senator Bernie Sanders was only slightly more cautious, vowing to try to find the good in Trump: “To the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him.”

However well-intentioned, this talk assumes that Trump is prepared to find common ground with his many opponents, respect the institutions of government, and repudiate almost everything he has stood for during the campaign. In short, it is treating him as a “normal” politician. There has until now been little evidence that he can be one. [Continue reading…]

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Trump looking at fast ways to quit global climate deal

Reuters reports: Donald Trump is seeking quick ways of withdrawing from a global agreement to limit climate change, a source on his transition team said, defying widening international backing for the plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Since the U.S. President-elect was chosen, governments ranging from China to small island states have reaffirmed support for the 2015 Paris Agreement at 200-nation climate talks running until Nov. 18 in Marrakesh, Morocco.

Trump, who has called global warming a hoax and has promised to quit the Paris Agreement, was considering ways to bypass a theoretical four-year procedure for leaving the accord, according to the source, who works on Trump’s transition team for international energy and climate policy.

“It was reckless for the Paris agreement to enter into force before the election” on Tuesday, the source told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. The Paris Agreement won enough backing for entry into force on Nov. 4.

Alternatives were to send a letter withdrawing from a 1992 Convention that is the parent treaty of the Paris Agreement, voiding U.S. involvement in both in a year’s time, or to issue a presidential order simply deleting the U.S. signature from the Paris accord, he said. [Continue reading…]

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After Trump win, parallel path is seen for Marine Le Pen of France’s far right

The New York Times reports: It was a moment of intense French patriotism on a sunny Friday, Armistice Day. A band blared “La Marseillaise,” the national anthem. Shouts of “Vive la France!” filled the chilly November air. And there, too, was Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front party, beaming.

Before Donald J. Trump’s presidential victory in the United States this week, Ms. Le Pen was considered a disruptive political force but far from a true threat to become president herself when France votes next spring. Not anymore.

Since Wednesday, French news outlets, along with Ms. Le Pen’s mainstream political rivals, have been repeating the same thing: It could happen here.

And Ms. Le Pen is not alone. From the Balkans to the Netherlands, politicians on the far right have greeted the election of Mr. Trump with unrestrained delight and as a radical reconfiguring of the political landscape — not just in the United States, but in Europe as well.

They are seeing it as a sign that their time has finally arrived, and that the politics of heightened nationalism, immigrant-bashing and anti-globalization have overturned the pro-globalization, pro-immigration consensus. [Continue reading…]

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Protesters take anti-Trump message to his doorstep, and plan next move

The New York Times reports: They came in their thousands — the children of immigrants, transgender individuals, women and men of all different ages and races — to demonstrate against President-elect Donald J. Trump on Saturday in New York.

Some held handwritten signs like, “Show the world what the popular vote looks like.” The throng chanted, “Not our president!”

In one of the largest anti-Trump demonstrations since his election on Tuesday, a mass of people marched from Union Square in downtown New York to Trump Tower, the headquarters and home of Mr. Trump.

The protesters included Fin Justin Ross, 20, a transgender man from New Jersey, and Virginia Jimenez, 45, a Mexican-American from Long Island who said she came to show that “not all Mexicans are bad people.” Shake’ Topalian, 71, a child of Turkish immigrants, said she was fearful that a genocide like the one her parents had survived could “happen again.”

What a Trump administration will bring remains something of a mystery. But a national resistance among liberal activists and others who say they do not support his presidency is rising in response to the election in a way not seen in modern presidential history. Thousands of people have taken to the streets to pre-emptively denounce a man whose administration they fear will be rooted in bigotry. Students have walked out of classes, protesters have blocked highways and demonstrators have clashed with the police. [Continue reading…]

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The alt-right supported Trump. Now its members want him to satisfy their demands

The Washington Post reports: Mike Adams, a conservative Texas blogger, greeted President-elect Donald Trump’s victory with this post: “The evil, demonic, mass murdering Hillary Clinton has been defeated. This is VICTORY for all Americans, even the uninformed, ignorant morons who voted for Hillary.”

But a few hours later, as the news sank in, Adams posted again with a more hopeful tone: “Today I declare ‘LOVE WINS’ because it is love for America that inspired us to collectively achieve this great victory.” He said he was going to send Trump a video with his suggestions about how to reform health care.

Adams and thousands of others on the furious far-right of American political discourse, who have railed for years against the “criminal” and “treasonous” excesses of the federal government under President Obama, woke up Wednesday to find themselves in the odd position of being, essentially, insiders.

Members of the so-called “alt-right,” who reject establishment conservatism and spread their far-right ideology online, were eagerly courted by candidate Trump. Now this vocal constituency feels emboldened by its new ally in the White House, presenting Trump with a major challenge to satisfy its pent-up demands while trying to unite a deeply divided nation.

Adams, who blogs about health, wellness and politics on a Facebook page that has 2 million “likes,” said he sees the Trump election as a long-awaited chance to be heard by the White House. In addition to sending Trump his health-care ideas, he is urging him to fight abortion and nominate Supreme Court justices who will protect his right to own a gun. [Continue reading…]

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This is who we are

Vann R Newkirk II writes: You learn a lot about America on its country roads.

My education came under the tutelage of my father, a man who taught me his love for driving through the South. There’s a beauty in the neat tobacco rows on Highway 64 and the tall, quiet sentinel trees on 87. With mouths full of sunflower seeds, my daddy would quiz me on each plant, animal, and landmark we passed, and I picked up both his habits of driving and cataloguing the things that made us Southern, black, and whole.

But things ain’t always beautiful, and I learned those too. One hot summer afternoon, taking the 74 east from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Elizabethtown in my daddy’s black Toyota truck, a man ran us off the road. We skidded on the dirt shoulder as the man sped on past, his Confederate battle flag license plate a final insult to our situation. The bile rose in my throat, and the hot anger and shame at the symbol made my skin prickle. Here was a man who could just be a jerk having a bad day, but whose choice of a single symbol suddenly made that bad day personal. My dad just cussed a little bit, put another handful of sunflower seeds in his mouth, and continued on our way down that road.

At a gas station just outside of Rockingham, serendipity found us. As we pulled up to the pump, just there in front of our car was Mr. Confederate Plate, leaning like all villains do against the side of his car. I’m not sure who recognized whom first, but I remember the shouting match, and Mr. Confederate Flag calling my father the one name he would never answer to, looking at me and saying the same, and then pantomiming that he had a gun in the car. I remember looking around at similar flags on another truck and inside the gas station, and knowing instinctively that we were not in friendly territory. I also remember my father shaking with rage and that same hot shame as my own when he climbed back in the truck.

After another cussing fit, Vann Newkirk, Sr. looked at me and said the thing that’s always stuck with me since. “This is who we are,” he told me. “Don’t forget.” And we went back down the road.

This is who we are. Those words often come to me when I see the ugly things in life now. When the first details about Tamir Rice’s death at the hands of police officers came to me on Twitter, they were a scream in the dark. When people questioned with straight faces if our president was even born in America, they echoed about my ears. When the Department of Justice report revealed that Ferguson, Missouri was a racial kleptocracy, they were a whisper in the wind.

When a man who was accused of multiple sexual assaults, was endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan, characterized Mexican immigrants as “rapists,” and promoted stop and frisk as a national campaign of “law and order” was elected president, they boomed like thunder. [Continue reading…]

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Denounce the hate, Mr. Trump

In an editorial, the New York Times says: In his victory speech early Wednesday morning, Donald Trump pledged that he “will be president for all Americans,” and he asked those who did not support him “for your guidance and your help so that we can work together and unify our great country.”

Here’s some guidance right off the bat, Mr. President-elect: Those sentiments will have more force if you immediately and unequivocally repudiate the outpouring of racist, sexist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic and homophobic insults, threats and attacks being associated with your name. Do this in a personal plea to people who supported your candidacy. Tell them this is not what you stand for, nor is it what your new administration will tolerate.

Explicit expressions of bigotry and hatred by Trump supporters were common throughout the campaign, and they have become even more intense since his election. On a department-store window in Philadelphia, vandals spray-painted “Sieg Heil 2016” and Mr. Trump’s name written with a swastika. In a Minnesota high-school bathroom, vandals scrawled the Trump campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” and next to it, “Go back to Africa.” There are many more reports pouring in of verbal and physical harassment of Muslims, Latinos and other members of minorities. Though not all are verifiable, the atmosphere of intimidation and fear is unquestionably real and will keep growing. Mr. Trump may not be able to stop it by himself, but he must do everything he can.

The problem, of course, is that Mr. Trump’s campaign was based on appeals — some explicit, some coded — to racial and ethnic resentment and division. His followers heard it starting with his speech declaring his candidacy, warning of Mexican immigrant “rapists,” continuing to a rally last weekend where he promised to bar all Syrian refugees because they “will import generations of terrorism, extremism and radicalism into your schools and throughout your communities.” These statements emboldened and even encouraged those who have been looking for a license to lash out against immigrants, refugees, minorities and anyone else they find threatening. They take his victory as vindication of their feelings.

David Duke, the former Louisiana lawmaker and former imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, tweeted that Mr. Trump’s victory was “one of the most exciting nights of my life,” and also, “Our people have played a HUGE role in electing Trump!” In another tweet, he wrote, “Anyone telling you this was a vote for ‘unity’ is a liar and they know it!”

As a candidate, Mr. Trump could get away with ignoring racist and sexist abuse by his supporters. But as the president-elect, he has the moral duty to reject it in the most aggressive terms. There should be no space in American political discourse for violent or abusive behavior. And that includes, of course, acts of vandalism and other violence by anti-Trump demonstrators.

In a little more than two months, Donald Trump will take charge of a country of more than 320 million people of all races, ethnicities and religions. Every one of them deserves to live in safety, with dignity. [Continue reading…]

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Climate scientists are very worried about a Trump presidency

Huffington Post reports: Leading climate scientists are reeling in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton Tuesday, and scrambling to understand how his presidency will affect the struggle against climate change.

Trump has promised to be a fierce ally of the fossil fuel industry, has called climate change a Chinese hoax and has vowed to end federal spending on climate change initiatives and pull the U.S. out of the climate agreement reached in Paris last year.

While it would likely take more than a single term in the White House for Trump to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, the possibility has left climate scientists grasping for answers about what the future holds.

“I don’t think anyone knows what this means for U.S. policy on climate science or emissions reductions,” Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, told Carbon Brief, a U.K. news site that interviewed 21 climate scientists about their reactions to Trump’s election.

“To quote James Hansen, I fear this may be game over for the climate,” said Dr. Michael E. Mann, a professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University. [Continue reading…]

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Trump now fishing at swamp he promised to drain

CNN reports: To shape his administration, President-elect Donald Trump is drawing squarely from the “swamp” he has pledged to drain.

Trump’s transition team is staffed with long-time Washington experts and lobbyists from K Street, think tanks and political offices.

It’s a far cry from Trump’s campaign, which ended only Tuesday night, and message that he would “drain the swamp” in Washington. He has advocated congressional term limits and proposed a “five-point plan for ethics reform” that included strengthening restrictions on lobbying, including five-year bans for members and staff of the executive branch and Congress from lobbying, and expanding the definition of lobbyist to prevent more revolving door activity.

But he has so far fully embraced lobbyists within his transition, and all signs point to a heavy influence from longtime Washington Republican circles on his transition. And with Trump mostly skipping detailed policy proposals during his campaign, they can have a powerful impact on his agenda. [Continue reading…]

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Immigrants gave their info to Obama, now Trump could use it to deport them

The Daily Beast reports: For DREAMers, Trump’s presidency could be a nightmare.

Almost a million undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children trusted the federal government with their personal information — including their home addresses — so they could gain temporary protection from deportation.

But under the Donald Trump administration, that could make them targets; in a brutal twist of irony, their faith in American institutions could actually increase their risk of being forcibly removed from the country.

DREAMers are the undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as minors, haven’t committed any crimes, and could get temporary work permits and protection from deportation through Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (known as DACA). Under the Obama presidency, DACA was a godsend; it meant DREAMers who built their entire lives in the U.S. could stay without fear. It made it easier for them to get jobs and plan their futures.

They trusted their government. And now, that government is about to change. [Continue reading…]

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Doors slam shut for Afghan refugees

In an editorial, the New York Times says: Pakistan is turning them back. Thousands who spent their life savings on a bid to resettle in Europe are being told it’s time to head home. Inside Afghanistan, tens of thousands have become internally displaced in recent months as fighting between the Taliban and government security forces rages in several provinces. The refugee crisis could reach unprecedented numbers, with as many as 1.5 million returning home, many involuntarily, by the end of the year, according to humanitarian organizations.

Yet, there is no plan to adequately address this humanitarian emergency. Its scale and the international community’s dismissive attitude toward the plight of vulnerable Afghans is shameful. Pakistan, home to 1.3 million registered Afghan refugees and some 700,000 undocumented Afghans, has begun to crack down on those refugees living in the country without permission. By the end of this year, as many as 360,000 could be forced to return to Afghanistan, if current rates hold, according to the United Nations refugee agency. This year’s number of returnees is about four times higher than last year’s.

Among those caught in Pakistan’s toughening stance is Sharbat Gula, the subject of a famous photo that was published on a cover of National Geographic magazine in 1985. That photo was taken at a refugee camp in Pakistan when she was about 12. Ms. Gula, now in her 40s, was recently arrested and deported back to Afghanistan because she had been living in Pakistan without legitimate papers.

As Afghans become ever more hopeless about the future of their country, a rising number have set out on long and perilous journeys to Europe. Last year, 213,000 Afghans made it to Europe, where leaders have been grappling with the even larger influx of Syrians. While Syrians are not being forced to return home, European leaders last month struck a deal with the government of Afghanistan to establish a mechanism for the return of tens of thousands of Afghans who have failed to get asylum or legal residency in Europe. Under the deal, the Afghan government agreed to accept even citizens who fear for their safety if they were to return home.

Those who go back home, often having spent all their money on smugglers, face grinding poverty and violence. Within the country, about 221,000 Afghans fled their homes between January and August, according to the United Nations. For many, the only option is to pitch a tent in one of the country’s bulging and poorly serviced refugee camps.

The United Nations refugee agency has been making desperate pleas to donors for more assistance as winter approaches. Last month, it said it needed $181 million to cover basic operations in the months ahead. Fulfilling that need immediately is the least the international community can do. Beyond that, it will need to rethink its long-term approach to Afghan refugees and how to resettle more abroad in the years ahead. [Continue reading…]

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For Europe, Trump’s election is a terrifying disaster

Clemens Wergin writes: No one in Europe truly believed Americans would elect someone who seems so obviously unfit to lead the most powerful nation in the world. And yet, that is precisely what has happened, and now, across the Continent, people are trying to figure out what this will mean. Many fear that Donald J. Trump’s election might mean the end of the West as we know it.

To be fair, from Europe’s perspective, the West was already on shaky ground. Russia is barking at our borders. The war in Syria has unleashed a huge wave of migration that is challenging our identities and fueling a right-wing backlash. Britain has already voted to become the first country to leave the European Union, an institution that seems in danger of unraveling.

But Mr. Trump’s election poses a new systemic and strategic risk. For seven decades, a politically stable United States has been a beacon of democracy and a cornerstone of the liberal world order. When democracy was seriously threatened in Europe, the United States stepped in and stopped the tide of authoritarianism. But now the United States itself has elected a demagogue who seems to have authoritarian tendencies and whose proposals — if he follows through on them — will have huge and disastrous consequences from Lisbon to Kiev.

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany knows how grave the situation is. As she congratulated Mr. Trump on his victory on Wednesday, she also lectured him on the elements of liberal democracy that form the basis of the American-European relations. “Germany and America are bound by their values: democracy, freedom, the respect for the law and the dignity of human beings, independent of their origin, skin color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or political position,” Ms. Merkel said. “On the basis of these values I offer the future president of the United States, Donald Trump, close cooperation.” [Continue reading…]

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