Suburban Bar Apologizes, Rescinds 'Build-A-Wall' Burger Special After Backlash

A Palatine bar that planned to offer a “Build-A-Wall” burger adorned with Mexican condiments has walked back on the special after receiving criticism from some saying it was offensive—though not everyone agrees.
A Facebook post on Durty Nellie’s Facebook page shows a kitten with the words “I am sorry!!! I am sorry!!! I am very sorry!!!”

“Durty Nellies is extremely sorry for posting something that was so upsetting to so many people,” the establishment says in the post. “It was our lame attempt at humor and an attempt to put a little levity in such trying times that severely backfired. It was not the intent of Durty Nellie's to offend anyone or show any malice. Durty Nellie's prides itself on a fun atmosphere and we took it a little too far. We will not be supporting such behavior and will leave all attempts at comedy to the professionals in the future.”

A screengrab of the original offer, which was deleted, three silhouettes depicting President Donald trump filled with brick walls. “Stack as many 40 oz. Angus patties as you want between a brioche bun,” it reads. The ingredients were to include homemade mole, tortilla strips, Chihuahua cheese, pico de gallo, guacamole and jalapeno peppers.

Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner Attends Koch Brothers Donor Summit in California

Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner has yet to weigh in on President Donald Trump's executive order that halts refugee resettlement and imposes a travel ban on immigrants from seven Muslim-majority nations.
As demonstrators protested the order at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport and across the country this weekend, NBC 5 confirmed that Rauner has been in Palm Springs, California, for a three-day donor summit with Koch Industries.

The first-term Republican sees the event as a policy summit, a spokesperson said, calling it a chance to discuss criminal justice reform and the advancements they believe they've made in Illinois.

However, the seminar is also considered a chance for 2018 Republican candidates to meet potential donors. Led by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, the Koch network plans to spend up to $400 million on policy and political campaigns during the midterm cycle, according to several reports including from the Washington Post.

Netanyahus Support Of Donald Trump Is Already Causing Him Problems

By Luke Baker

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - When Benjamin Netanyahu sent a tweet in support of President Donald Trump’s plan for a wall along the Mexican border, the Israeli prime minister can barely have expected it would be retweeted 40,000 times and cause a backlash at home and abroad.

Already under arguably the greatest pressure he has faced in his 11 years as prime minister, with police questioning him in two criminal probes into abuse of office, aligning himself with Trump may further undermine his standing.

The tweet, sent from his personal account shortly before the Jewish sabbath officially ended on Saturday, was very clear:

https://twitter.com/netanyahu/status/825371795972825089?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Netanyahu was referring to a steel fence Israel has built along its border with Egypt, mainly to keep out migrants fleeing conflicts in Africa, including Somalis, Sudanese and Eritreans.

Israel has also built a steel-and-concrete barrier along its border with the occupied West Bank, which it says is to prevent militants crossing into Israel. Palestinians see the barrier, which has drawn international condemnation, as a land grab.

On the one hand, Trump’s election as president was seen as a godsend for Netanyahu, the first time in four terms as prime minister that he would have a Republican in the White House.

As well as the Republicans being more ideologically aligned with Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition, Trump has already shown a willingness to turn a blind eye to Israel’s settlement building in the West Bank, which Barack Obama’s administration frequently criticized, casting a pall over U.S.-Israeli ties.

On the other hand, Trump is an unpredictable actor who in just nine days in office has sewn division across the United States and shocked capitals around the world with a series of executive actions that are overturning decades of U.S. policy.

The adverse reaction to Netanyahu’s tweet, which was retweeted by Trump and drew far more attention than Netanyahu’s tweets usually do as a result, appeared to be an early sign of the dangerNetanyahu faces with aligning himself with Trump.

The Mexican government was outraged that he would involve himself in what it regards as a bilateral issue...

The Democratic Base is Marching Right Past It's Leaders.

A white Trump voter explains why he was inspired to leave a black waitress a $450 tip

When Jason White walked into Busboys and Poets Monday morning, a Washington restaurant that promotes social justice, he looked around and told his friend he might want to remove his red “Make America Great Again” cap.

The three white Texan men knew they stuck out in a place where African-American art and images cover the walls. And White said he could sense when his waitress greeted them that she knew they did too.

But Rosalynd Harris had arrived at work that morning still high off the energy from the Women’s March. Her customers Saturday had been abuzz with an optimism that was contagious.

So she was especially cheery when she greeted White and his two friends. They chatted warmly. They told her they were from West Texas. White is a dentist and he complimented her on her smile. They were jovial and fun.

Harris admits that White was right. She did prejudge them, by instantly assuming they were in town for President Trump’s inauguration by appearance alone, even though by that point the signature red baseball cap at been tucked away.

When the men finished their meals White decided to leave Harris, a 25-year-old African American woman, a personal message on the receipt. Then, after he wrote it, he left a $450 tip on their $72.60 bill, which is a nearly 625 percent tip.

Moment Melania Trump's smile turns to a frown the second Donald looks away

Obama makes healthcare plea in handoff letter to Trump

In the tradition of departing presidents, Barack Obama left a letter for incoming President Donald Trump.

The thrust of the message, which Trump relayed to congressional leaders during their White House meeting Monday evening, was a plea to salvage ObamaCare — or swap it for something at least as generous.

"I haven't seen the letter," Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who attended the meeting, told reporters Tuesday. "But President Obama correctly … stated that, 'Look, we believe the Affordable Care Act is a very important piece of legislation which has given Americans better health, better access, more reliability. And if you have a bill … that improves upon all this, well, you know, maybe I could support it."

"I don't know what the verbiage of President Obama's was," he added. "But his point was: 'If you've got something that's really better and we see it and we think it's better, then we could support that.'"

Trump previously called Obama's letter "beautiful."

Monday's assembly, the first bipartisan meeting hosted by Trump since Friday's swearing in, was by all accounts an informal gathering, heavy on meatballs and light on specific policy details. But Hoyer and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), the House Democratic leader, both said they pressed Trump on Republicans' early plan to repeal Obama's signature healthcare law and replace it with something they consider more market-driven.

Democrats are concerned that undoing ObamaCare would extinguish certain benefits while threatening to terminate coverage for millions of patients newly insured under the law. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that repeal would cause 18 million people to lose coverage in the first year alone.

Trump, for his part, has dismissed such dismal predictions by vowing that the Republicans' replacement plan will provide "insurance for everybody." But no detailed plan has yet emerged, and Republican leaders on Capitol Hill have avoided similar coverage promises.

Trump and the Republicans are huddling in Philadelphia beginning Wednesday for a three-day retreat where they're hoping to hammer out at least a preliminary strategy for making good on one of their chief campaign promises.

Hoyer said Trump's response to the Democrats' healthcare concerns was curious.

"He said, 'Well, the Affordable Care Act is going to self-destruct.' And he turned to [Speaker] Paul Ryan, and he said: 'Paul, what I told you is we could [repeal it] or we could leave it in place for two years and it would self-destruct and we'd all look good. But that wouldn't be a good thing to do and … we need to replace it now.'" Hoyer said, relating Trump's words.

Eight Democratic senators propose 10-year trillion-dollar infrastructure plan

America’s infrastructure suffers from decades of reckless neglect, what bureaucrats and policymakers conceal behind the euphemism of “deferred maintenance.” Decrepit describes the consequences. Myopic describes the attitude. This affects many realms—our public schools, our public health system, our electrical transmission grid and, despite how deeply we Americans treasure personal mobility, our transportation system.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and seven of his colleagues are proposing a $1 trillion infrastructure plan today. As The New York Times reports, they are daring Pr*sident Trump to make good on his promises of infrastructure projects. Patrick Sisson writes:

“From our largest cities to our smallest towns, communities across the country are struggling to meet the challenges of aging infrastructure,” Senator Schumer said in a prepared statement. “Our urban and rural communities have their own unique set of infrastructure priorities, and this proposal would provide funding to address those needed upgrades that go beyond the traditional road and bridge repair.”

The seven other senior Senate Democrats are Bill Nelson (Florida), Bernie Sanders and Patrick J. Leahy (Vermont), Ron Wyden (Oregon), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Maria Cantwell (Washington), and Thomas R. Carper (Delaware).

Schumer and a few other Democrats in addition to those seven have said they would work with Trump on infrastructure if he is willing to cooperate. Good friggin’ luck on that.

As part of his campaign for the White House, Trump proposed his own trillion-dollar infrastructure proposal. But his plan would have merely provided $140 billion in tax credits to construction companies, and those credits would supposedly pay for themselves from new economic activity associated with the infrastructure upgrades. The idea is that the credits would leverage the rest of the trillion dollars from private investment. But that’s something that historically just hasn't worked because there’s not enough profit in it for private investors.

Schumer said earlier this month that tax credits “won't get the job done.”

Unlike Trump’s blueprint, the Democratic plan would direct the money to specific areas of concern.

Their plan includes $20 billion for broadband installations, $75 billion for schools, $110 billion for decaying water and sewer systems, $180 billion for expanded mass transit lines, $70 billion for upgraded ports and airports, $100 billion to improve the electrical grid, $10 billion for veterans hospitals, $210 billion for roads and bridges, $200 billion for unspecified “vital infrastructure projects” and $10 billion for an infrastructure bank.

One of the big gains, of course, would be jobs. Every billion dollars in spending produces 13,000 jobs, according to this report.

In 2013, the American Society of Civil Engineers issued a report card on U.S. infrastructure, giving the nation overall a D+ and concluding that $3.6 trillion would be needed to bring infrastructure up to snuff by 2020.

A $100 billion a year spent on infrastructure may seem like a lot, and, of course, given the make-up of Congress is no doubt a rotten bridge too far.

But the U.S. has a basic Pentagon budget of $580 billion this year. Surely we ought to be spending an equal amount on renovated and innovated infrastructure since it’s a crucial element of national security and crucial to a thriving existence in the modern age. Yet short-sighted politicians have treated it as if it doesn’t really matter, insubstantially patched up or simply left to fall apart.

That's been as much the case with transportation as elsewhere.

Fixes matter. Decaying bridges can't be ignored. But too much of our attention in transportation is devoted to repairing, and not enough to rethinking. Important improvements are being made. For example, light rail, a system prevalent in many cities in the days before the internal combustion engine reshaped our lives, is making a comeback a few urban miles at a time. But this is a small effort, piecemeal and underfunded. Vehicle drive-trains are being revamped, but ever so slowly.

Meanwhile, our major modes of transportation poison us, burn two-thirds of the oil we drill at home and import from abroad, make us less secure because of the geopolitics involved in maintaining access to much of that oil, gobble up a scarce resource essential for making other products, extract large hunks of household income, and contribute a third of the CO2 we’re loading into the atmosphere.

And as the Democratic infrastructure proposal notes, transportation is just one arena that needs serious attention. As Terry O’Sullivan, General President of the Laborers’ International Union of North America has said:

“This is the 21st century, but our transportation systems are stuck in the 20th. One of four bridges in the U.S. is structurally deficient or obsolete, more than half the miles we drive on federal highways are on roads in less than good condition and our transit systems are stretched beyond capacity. This is a recipe for falling behind, not competing in the global economy. We can put men and women back to work building America, get our economy on track and leave behind real assets for taxpayers and future generations.”

Former Senator Bob Dole is greeted by President Trump and Former President Obama

Inside Malia and Sasha Obama relationship