Latest news with #GermanAmerican
Time of India
21-05-2025
- Sport
- Time of India
Amon-Ra St. Brown may represent Team Germany in the 2028 Summer Olympics
(Image via Getty: Amon-Ra St. Brown) Amon-Ra St. Brown recently made headlines because he declared on his Instagram story that he would love to play for Team Germany in the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles! Amon-Ra Julian Heru John St. Brown is a German American professional football wide receiver for the Detroit Lions of the NFL. He carries the German roots through his mother, Miriam Steyer's side. Now that the NFL's allowed to play flag football in the 2028 Summer Olympics, it would be fun to watch who goes where! Not limited to the 32 NFL teams, everyone often hears about! Justin Jefferson wants to play for Team USA, Amon-Ra St. Brown wants to play for Team Germany, and who else wants to play where? Minnesota Vikings WR Justin Jefferson shared screen space with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell at a press meet on May 20. Jefferson said it's always been his childhood dream to compete for his country. Detroit Lions WR Amon-Ra St. Brown shared an Instagram story of the NFL's Instagram post: NFL CLUBS APPROVE PARTICIPATION OF NFL PLAYERS. Brown captioned it, IT'S UP! DIE MANNSCHAFT('The Team' in German). (Image via Amon-Ra St. Brown's IG story) Miami Dolphins WR Tyreek Hill shared an Instagram post of Front Office Sports that read, NFL PLAYERS APPROVED TO PLAY OLYMPIC FLAG FOOTBALL on his Instagram story. Hill captioned it with a Happy Devil emoji(😈). (Image via Tyreek Hill IG story) According to FOX Sports, several NFL players have already expressed an interest in playing in the Olympics, with Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts and Kansas City Chiefs counterpart Patrick Mahomes among those indicating a desire to play in the Games. Who will be on the Dream Team for the 2028 Olympics? According to Alan Goldsher, Sports Writer at Sports Illustrated, the following players may be in the Dream Team for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles: Jayden Daniels Bijan Robinson Justin Jefferson Brock Bowers Creed Humphrey Micah Parsons Patrick Queen Cooper DeJean Kyle Hamilton Micah McFadden According to Cody Benjamin, Sports Writer at CBS Sports, the following could be the best possible NFL flag football team for the 2028 Summer Olympics: Jayden Daniels Jahmyr Gibbs De'Von Achane Justin Jefferson Ja'Marr Chase Travis Hunter Micah Parsons Nolan Smith Jr. Derek Stingley Jr. Maxwell Hairston Also Read: Justin Jefferson calls representing Team USA in the 2028 Olympics and winning a gold medal a dream | NFL News - Times of India Get IPL 2025 match schedules , squads , points table , and live scores for CSK , MI , RCB , KKR , SRH , LSG , DC , GT , PBKS , and RR . Check the latest IPL Orange Cap and Purple Cap standings.
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Calmes: What Hannah Arendt saw in Hitler's Germany, we can see in Trump's America
As a descendant of German immigrants, from college on I devoured histories of the rise of fascism to grasp how the cultured and educated democracy of my great grandparents could succumb so tragically. I never got it; I had an American's complacency that made Germans' complicity incomprehensible. Decades later, I do understand. Because it is happening here. Comparing Hitler and the Nazis to Donald Trump and his MAGA movement is of course fraught. Trump's world war is a bloodless one over trade; his lawless roundups of migrants and domestic enemies aim to deport, not exterminate. And yet the parallels are undeniable. That was dramatically clear this week when I participated in a preview and discussion of a documentary on the life of German American Hannah Arendt, the Jewish survivor and chronicler of Nazi totalitarianism. (The film, 'Hannah Arendt: Facing Tyranny,' will air on PBS on June 27.) Read more: California lawmakers take steps to shield immigrants from Trump policies 'The beginnings of her thinking run in direct parallel to the rise of Adolph Hitler,' historian Lyndsey Stonebridge says in the film. Arendt's writings after she fled Germany in 1933 stand as a warning to her adopted country. At the end of her life, in President Nixon's time, she argued that in the United States 'the greatest danger of tyranny is of course from the executive.' But her legacy is also a positive call to individual action and personal responsibility. She'd have applauded last weekend's anti-Trump protests by millions nationwide. Her accounts of the factors behind Hitler's takeover are chillingly resonant. After World War I, a defeated Germany's populace felt economically cheated, alienated, distrustful of institutions — government, media, academia, business, political parties. Many Americans have similar, long-simmering grievances in the wake of globalization, Mideast wars, a worldwide financial collapse, pandemic and political polarization. Along comes an amoral self-styled strongman who harnesses that unrest by employing lies and conspiracy theories. For Hitler, the enemies of the state were actual communists and Jews; Trump's targets are purported communists — Democrats — and (in echoes of Hitler) 'vermin' immigrants 'poisoning the blood of our country.' In Arendt's account, totalitarianism arises when a political party, which typically restrains extremists in its midst, is replaced by a mass movement beholden to such a leader. In the film, Roger Berkowitz, founder and director of the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and the Humanities, notes that Hitler claimed to represent a majority but he did not. Sound familiar? Still, as Berkowitz explains, his coherent narrative of past grievance and future greatness persuaded many. He especially drew support from Germany's less educated and previously apathetic working class. Arendt theorized that Hitler gave people 'the impression that they're not alone anymore,' that 'they are part of something really big,' as German studies professor Barbara Hahn puts it in the film. We know the phenomenon. In Arendt's first major book, 'The Origins of Totalitarianism,' she wrote, 'The ideal subject was not the convinced Nazi but the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction no longer existed. A most cherished virtue is loyalty to the leader.' Read more: Contributor: Will the Supreme Court check Trump's unconstitutional acts? It may come down to one justice Just like this country's Republican Old Guard, Germany's conservative establishment initially thought it could control Hitler, so politicians and business leaders didn't ostracize or condemn him. But he played them, just as Trump has mastered Republican 'leaders,' parlaying his popular appeal and political ruthlessness into total power. Unchecked, Hitler quickly broke laws and the institutions he'd long attacked. Too familiar. Trump wrote on X last month: 'He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.' In 'Origins,' Arendt held that 'totalitarianism replaces all first-rate talent with crackpots and fools, whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.' The seasoned advisors who acted as guardrails in Trump 1.0 are gone, replaced in Trump 2.0 with inexperienced suck-ups, conspiracists and fellow avengers and economic dopes: a whole Cabinet of crackpots. So it is that his national security team would get caught last month discussing military plans on an unsecure commercial channel (a violation of federal law), with a journalist inadvertently included. With the connivance of the crackpots, Trump seeks to replace the rule of law with rule by man. Less than three months in, we are seeing abductions of legal residents by unidentified, masked agents and deportations without due process. 'We don't give our names,' a plainclothes man told the very-pregnant wife of Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil during his March 8 arrest. The administration is revoking visas without notice or legal cause, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio boasting, 'We're looking every day for these lunatics' — meaning those whose speech and political thought don't align with Trump's. Congress, with a Republican majority, is ceding its constitutional power, especially over federal spending and tariffs. Trump is curtailing media access to the White House. He has targeted universities, law firms and cultural institutions with punitive executive orders, and many have caved. Read more: Their work in peril, UCLA researchers decry Trump administration funding cuts at protest Federal judges are providing some pushback but coming under attack from the president and obeisant party leaders. 'We can eliminate an entire district court,' House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters last month. Meanwhile, the administration has disregarded some judicial orders, and the conservative Supreme Court so far has mostly shied away from a showdown. What to do? That's the question Arendt posed in her time. 'One of her main intellectual contributions was to renew the category of political action in response,' said Arendt scholar Ian Rhoad, who also participated in the documentary preview at American University. After Hitler's 1933 power grab, 'I felt responsibility,' Arendt later told an interviewer. 'I was no longer of the opinion that one can simply be a bystander.' She harbored targeted Germans in her Berlin apartment and cataloged antisemitic acts for the record — until her own arrest and, ultimately, escape. In a last speech before her death in 1975, Arendt warned that totalitarian governments try to rewrite or bury history to suit them. Americans must resist, she said, 'for it was the greatness of this republic to give due account, for the sake of freedom, to the best in man and to the worst.' Now that's how to make America great again. @jackiekcalmes Get the latest from Jackie CalmesCommentary on politics and more from award-winning opinion me up. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
10-04-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
What Hannah Arendt saw in Hitler's Germany, we can see in Trump's America
As a descendant of German immigrants, from college on I devoured histories of the rise of fascism to grasp how the cultured and educated democracy of my great grandparents could succumb so tragically. I never got it; I had an American's complacency that made Germans' complicity incomprehensible. Decades later, I do understand. Because it is happening here. Comparing Hitler and the Nazis to Donald Trump and his MAGA movement is of course fraught. Trump's world war is a bloodless one over trade; his lawless roundups of migrants and domestic enemies aim to deport, not exterminate. And yet the parallels are undeniable. That was dramatically clear this week when I participated in a preview and discussion of a documentary on the life of German American Hannah Arendt, the Jewish survivor and chronicler of Nazi totalitarianism. (The film, 'Hannah Arendt: Facing Tyranny,' will air on PBS on June 27.) 'The beginnings of her thinking run in direct parallel to the rise of Adolph Hitler,' historian Lyndsey Stonebridge says in the film. Arendt's writings after she fled Germany in 1933 stand as a warning to her adopted country. At the end of her life, in President Nixon's time, she argued that in the United States 'the greatest danger of tyranny is of course from the executive.' But her legacy is also a positive call to individual action and personal responsibility. She'd have applauded last weekend's anti-Trump protests by millions nationwide. Her accounts of the factors behind Hitler's takeover are chillingly resonant. After World War I, a defeated Germany's populace felt economically cheated, alienated, distrustful of institutions — government, media, academia, business, political parties. Many Americans have similar, long-simmering grievances in the wake of globalization, Mideast wars, a worldwide financial collapse, pandemic and political polarization. Along comes an amoral self-styled strongman who harnesses that unrest by employing lies and conspiracy theories. For Hitler, the enemies of the state were actual communists and Jews; Trump's targets are purported communists — Democrats — and (in echoes of Hitler) 'vermin' immigrants 'poisoning the blood of our country.' In Arendt's account, totalitarianism arises when a political party, which typically restrains extremists in its midst, is replaced by a mass movement beholden to such a leader. In the film, Roger Berkowitz, founder and director of the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and the Humanities, notes that Hitler claimed to represent a majority but he did not. Sound familiar? Still, as Berkowitz explains, his coherent narrative of past grievance and future greatness persuaded many. He especially drew support from Germany's less educated and previously apathetic working class. Arendt theorized that Hitler gave people 'the impression that they're not alone anymore,' that 'they are part of something really big,' as German studies professor Barbara Hahn puts it in the film. We know the phenomenon. In Arendt's first major book, 'The Origins of Totalitarianism,' she wrote, 'The ideal subject was not the convinced Nazi but the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction no longer existed. A most cherished virtue is loyalty to the leader.' Just like this country's Republican Old Guard, Germany's conservative establishment initially thought it could control Hitler, so politicians and business leaders didn't ostracize or condemn him. But he played them, just as Trump has mastered Republican 'leaders,' parlaying his popular appeal and political ruthlessness into total power. Unchecked, Hitler quickly broke laws and the institutions he'd long attacked. Too familiar. Trump wrote on X last month: 'He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.' In 'Origins,' Arendt held that 'totalitarianism replaces all first-rate talent with crackpots and fools, whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.' The seasoned advisors who acted as guardrails in Trump 1.0 are gone, replaced in Trump 2.0 with inexperienced suck-ups, conspiracists and fellow avengers and economic dopes: a whole Cabinet of crackpots. So it is that his national security team would get caught last month discussing military plans on an unsecure commercial channel (a violation of federal law), with a journalist inadvertently included. With the connivance of the crackpots, Trump seeks to replace the rule of law with rule by man. Less than three months in, we are seeing abductions of legal residents by unidentified, masked agents and deportations without due process. 'We don't give our names,' a plainclothes man told the very-pregnant wife of Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil during his March 8 arrest. The administration is revoking visas without notice or legal cause, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio boasting, 'We're looking every day for these lunatics' — meaning those whose speech and political thought don't align with Trump's. Congress, with a Republican majority, is ceding its constitutional power, especially over federal spending and tariffs. Trump is curtailing media access to the White House. He has targeted universities, law firms and cultural institutions with punitive executive orders, and many have caved. Federal judges are providing some pushback but coming under attack from the president and obeisant party leaders. 'We can eliminate an entire district court,' House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters last month. Meanwhile, the administration has disregarded some judicial orders, and the conservative Supreme Court so far has mostly shied away from a showdown. What to do? That's the question Arendt posed in her time. 'One of her main intellectual contributions was to renew the category of political action in response,' said Arendt scholar Ian Rhoad, who also participated in the documentary preview at American University. After Hitler's 1933 power grab, 'I felt responsibility,' Arendt later told an interviewer. 'I was no longer of the opinion that one can simply be a bystander.' She harbored targeted Germans in her Berlin apartment and cataloged antisemitic acts for the record — until her own arrest and, ultimately, escape. In a last speech before her death in 1975, Arendt warned that totalitarian governments try to rewrite or bury history to suit them. Americans must resist, she said, 'for it was the greatness of this republic to give due account, for the sake of freedom, to the best in man and to the worst.' Now that's how to make America great again. @jackiekcalmes
Yahoo
18-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Editorial: In bitter Orland Park mayoral race, Tribune Editorial Board endorses a return to civility
Federal partisanship has gotten so extreme and so ugly that people are cutting family members out of their lives, neighbors aren't speaking and, in general, Americans are likelier to view folks from the opposing political party as either idiotic or wicked. Local politics are supposed to be different. Candidates are, after all, running to represent their baristas, local business owners, the family down the block and the other parents at their kids' school. In other words, local politics is personal, and the proximity of the candidates to one another — and their constituents — usually breeds a healthy dose of decorum and respect. Not so in one southwest suburb. The mayoral race playing out in Orland Park has been anything but civil. Candidates are incumbent Mayor Keith Pekau and former Village Trustee and Clerk Jim Dodge. In a joint virtual appearance before us, the candidates told the editorial board they used to be neighbors, and that Pekau's children used to babysit Dodge's kids. We were left wondering what changed since then. Pekau has been attacked with ads calling him and his wife racist. Dodge denies involvement in these robocalls. Pekau has been relentless in his own attacks on Dodge, whom he positions as a liar and a stooge of special interests. The level of political discourse is disappointingly low and strikingly personal. That's surprising given the candidates' commitment to public service. Both candidates are military veterans. Both have served many years in local government. We commend them for their service. We hope they are able to mend fences, both for themselves and for the good of their village. In some ways, this race feels like a proxy battle between business and unions for control over Orland Park. Dodge has received a number of donations from labor groups while Pekau is backed by local businesses. Both men have poured their own money into their campaigns. Pekau called for reopening businesses during COVID long before it was popular, and says his efforts increased pressure that ultimately led to reopening. We were glad to see businesses able to reopen too. But this race also touches the prickliest national political issues. Pekau attended the December 2024 Republican holiday bash in which border czar Tom Homan told the crowd 'your mayor sucks and your governor sucks.' We not only critiqued that lack of decorum from a high-ranking federal official, but also noted that all this sort of macho bluster will do is make Homan's agents' jobs more difficult. We're also troubled by the handling of a confrontation after residents asked village officials to adopt a Gaza ceasefire resolution. Pekau has rightly pointed out that in his role as a local official he has nothing to do with foreign policy. But his messaging left many feeling unwelcome. 'First and foremost I'm an American,' he said at the Feb. 5 board of trustees meeting. 'I'm not a German American, I'm an American. That's where my allegiances lie. Period. Dot. End of story. And if you're an American citizen, and you don't feel that way, in my opinion, you're entitled to that opinion, but you can certainly go, and go to another country and support that country, and all the power to you if you choose to do that. I will always support America's interests.' It's that last part about going to another country that set people off. Dodge, a longtime Republican, is far from perfect. We're suspicious of his endorsements from big labor groups such as the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which could mean spending and tax growth down the road. We also have grave concerns about the nature of the campaign against Pekau, and we find the personal attacks that have taken place unacceptable. But given the polarization in village politics at the moment, we can't help but feel like something needs to change. Jim Dodge is endorsed. Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@
Chicago Tribune
18-03-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Editorial: In bitter Orland Park mayoral race, Tribune Editorial Board endorses a return to civility
Federal partisanship has gotten so extreme and so ugly that people are cutting family members out of their lives, neighbors aren't speaking and, in general, Americans are likelier to view folks from the opposing political party as either idiotic or wicked. Local politics are supposed to be different. Candidates are, after all, running to represent their baristas, local business owners, the family down the block and the other parents at their kids' school. In other words, local politics is personal, and the proximity of the candidates to one another — and their constituents — usually breeds a healthy dose of decorum and respect. Not so in one southwest suburb. The mayoral race playing out in Orland Park has been anything but civil. Candidates are incumbent Mayor Keith Pekau and former Village Trustee and Clerk Jim Dodge. In a joint virtual appearance before us, the candidates told the editorial board they used to be neighbors, and that Pekau's children used to babysit Dodge's kids. We were left wondering what changed since then. Pekau has been attacked with ads calling him and his wife racist. Dodge denies involvement in these robocalls. Pekau has been relentless in his own attacks on Dodge, whom he positions as a liar and a stooge of special interests. The level of political discourse is disappointingly low and strikingly personal. That's surprising given the candidates' commitment to public service. Both candidates are military veterans. Both have served many years in local government. We commend them for their service. We hope they are able to mend fences, both for themselves and for the good of their village. In some ways, this race feels like a proxy battle between business and unions for control over Orland Park. Dodge has received a number of donations from labor groups while Pekau is backed by local businesses. Both men have poured their own money into their campaigns. Pekau called for reopening businesses during COVID long before it was popular, and says his efforts increased pressure that ultimately led to reopening. We were glad to see businesses able to reopen too. But this race also touches the prickliest national political issues. Pekau attended the December 2024 Republican holiday bash in which border czar Tom Homan told the crowd 'your mayor sucks and your governor sucks.' We not only critiqued that lack of decorum from a high-ranking federal official, but also noted that all this sort of macho bluster will do is make Homan's agents' jobs more difficult. We're also troubled by the handling of a confrontation after residents asked village officials to adopt a Gaza ceasefire resolution. Pekau has rightly pointed out that in his role as a local official he has nothing to do with foreign policy. But his messaging left many feeling unwelcome. 'First and foremost I'm an American,' he said at the Feb. 5 board of trustees meeting. 'I'm not a German American, I'm an American. That's where my allegiances lie. Period. Dot. End of story. And if you're an American citizen, and you don't feel that way, in my opinion, you're entitled to that opinion, but you can certainly go, and go to another country and support that country, and all the power to you if you choose to do that. I will always support America's interests.' It's that last part about going to another country that set people off. Dodge, a longtime Republican, is far from perfect. We're suspicious of his endorsements from big labor groups such as the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which could mean spending and tax growth down the road. We also have grave concerns about the nature of the campaign against Pekau, and we find the personal attacks that have taken place unacceptable. But given the polarization in village politics at the moment, we can't help but feel like something needs to change. Jim Dodge is endorsed.
