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There was mostly silence from top Georgia Republican elected officials on President Donald Trumps executive order to keep millions of foreigners out of the country. But there was a surge of support for the controversial policy from Trumps self-styled outsider allies in Georgia.

This is looking forward. This is inheriting a mess and trying to determine: Is there a problem here, or is there not? said former Rep. Jack Kingston, a Savannah Republican and one of Trumps go-to surrogates on cable news.

The order blocked all refugees from entering the United States for 120 days, indefinitely barred Syrian refugees from coming into the country and suspended citizens of seven countries from traveling here: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

The order, which took effect Friday afternoon, created chaos across the globe as scores of refugees were detained at airports in Atlanta and around the nation. A federal judges order temporarily prevented the government from deporting some arrivals.

Bruce Levell, the head of Trumps diversity coalition and a likely candidate for Congress in suburban Atlanta, echoed the presidents argument that the measures would help prevent terrorism.

For the last 8 years, radical liberals have weakened our borders, made deals with terrorist countries and jeopardized American security interests, he said. President Trumps executive order is exactly what our nation needs to ensure that radical islamic terrorism finds no safe harbor on American soil.

Meanwhile, most members of the states congressional delegation were mum on the refugee policy over the weekend, and requests for comment from mostof them went unanswered.

Republicans Rick Allen ofEvans and Buddy Carter of Pooler voiced support for the order.

In the world we currently live in, it is smart and necessary to put in place the most robust national security vetting process ever to know exactly who is entering our country so we can continue to welcome those who believe in Americas freedom and share our values, Carter said.

Allen said the move keeps Americans safe until we can reform our visa process and the vetting of refugees.

Some local activists quickly embraced the move.

Harry Abrams, a Cherokee County Republican, called Trumps order an attempt to restore sanity to the nations immigration policy and a first step toward curbing illegal immigration.

Our country has legally defined borders and the lawful right to protect those borders, said Abrams. The utter failure to respect the laws on the books and circumvent those laws by the past Administration has made a mockery of what we stand for.

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Silence and solidarity: Georgia Republicans on Trump's refugee decision - Atlanta Journal Constitution (blog)

Billionaire industrialist Charles Koch is launching a campaign to sink a border tax under consideration by Republican leaders in Congress, a move that could complicate the lawmakers' efforts to find a way to pay for President Donald Trump's proposed wall on the U.S. border with Mexico.

Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political advocacy group founded by Charles Koch and his brother David, plans to use its network of wealthy political donors and activists to kill the proposal, which aims to raise $1.2 trillion over 10 years on goods coming into the United States, according to officials from the group, which gathered this weekend for a conference.

Republican House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan is pushing the tax as part of a broader overhaul of the U.S. tax code.

The White House has given mixed signals on whether Trump supports the approach, but proponents say revenue collected from the border tax could finance Trump's drive to build a wall along the southwestern U.S. border. Proponents also say it would discourage U.S. manufacturers from moving abroad.

On Thursday, AFP sent a letter expressing its opposition to the border tax to a House panel in charge of writing tax legislation.

AFP Chief Executive Officer Luke Hilgemann, in an interview, called the measure "a massive tax increase" on U.S. consumers, who would pay more for foreign goods. He urged Ryan to "go back to the drawing board."

AFP and its offshoot organizations have become a powerful force in U.S. politics, bolstering candidates and issues on federal and state levels.

Besides defying Republican leaders on the border tax, the Koch-led organization on Sunday challenged Trump on a policy he implemented on Friday to stop the movement of people from countries with large Muslim populations from traveling to the United States.

"The travel ban is the wrong approach and will likely be counterproductive," said an official of the Koch network.

Koch refused to endorse Trump during his presidential campaign, differing with the candidate over his positions on immigration and trade policy, and his practice of singling out companies for possible retribution if they move jobs abroad.

Nevertheless, Hilgemann said AFP had a "developing relationship" with the Trump White House, which he said had reached out to his organization to discuss some policy matters.

At the same time, former AFP officials have landed high-level jobs in the Trump administration, giving the group a conduit for airing its policy wishes.

Looking toward the 2018 congressional and gubernatorial elections, AFP officials said they planned to boost the network's spending on policy and political activities to between $300 million and $400 million, up from an estimated $250 million for the 2016 campaigns.

Hilgemann also said AFP was laying plans to mobilize activists to help win Senate confirmation of Trump's pick for the Supreme Court nominee. The White House said Trump was planning this week to announce his pick to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

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Billionaire Koch Brothers Launch Effort to Kill Republican Border Tax Plan - Fortune

Republican Senators Question Trump on Executive Order Wall Street Journal WASHINGTONA growing number of Republican senators on Sunday said they were uneasy with aspects of President Donald Trump's decision to suspend entries to the U.S. from seven majority-Muslim countries, with centrists, military hawks and Mormon ...

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Republican Senators Question Trump on Executive Order - Wall Street Journal

Politico

The very short list of Republican congressmen who are publicly condemning Trump's Muslim ban Quartz Although several elected Republicans, including Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, House speaker Paul Ryan, and vice president Michael Pence condemned the idea before Trump was elected (calling it unconstitutional and unAmerican at the time) ... More Republicans chastise Trump over executive orderPolitico Faced with protests, some in GOP suggest order was too hasty, suggest a rethinkUSA TODAY Complete List of Republicans Opposing Donald Trump's Immigration Executive OrderHeavy.com Mic -The Guardian all 1,733 news articles »

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The very short list of Republican congressmen who are publicly condemning Trump's Muslim ban - Quartz

Alex Little Published 4:08 p.m. CT Jan. 29, 2017 | Updated 2 hours ago

Protests flared as President Trump's executive order blocked refugees from entering U.S. airports, including travelers who already had valid visas. USA TODAY NETWORK

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Hear the chants protesters belted out at San Francisco International Airport on behalf of refugees banned under President Trump's executive order on immigration. USA TODAY NETWORK

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In the wake of President Donald Trump's executive order on immigration Friday, many critics quickly took up a familiar rallying cry, lifting words from the Statue of Liberty that have for decades represented American immigration. Time

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President Donald Trump has barred all refugees from entering the United States for four months, and indefinitely banned all refugees from Syria. USA TODAY NETWORK

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Lawyers say dozens of travelers from countries named in President Trump's recent executive order were held at John F. Kennedy International Airport and other airports Saturday amid confusion about whether they could legally enter the country. Time

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Shortly after signing documents in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump said his crackdown on refugees and citizens from seven majority-Muslim countries "is not a Muslim ban." (Jan. 28) AP

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Iran says U.S. citizens are no longer welcome in the country. Buzz60

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Activists protested on Saturday the detention of two Iraqi citizens at New York City's JFK airport, one day after President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning citizens from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the US. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES Video provided by AFP Newslook

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US President Donald Trump unleashed a wave of alarm Saturday with his order to temporarily halt all refugee arrivals and impose tough controls on travelers from seven Muslim countries. Video provided by AFP Newslook

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Lawyers are taking action against President Donald Trump's immigration policy. Veuer's Keleigh Nealon (@keleighnealon) has the story. Buzz60

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President Donald Trump's signing of an executive action to bring sweeping changes to the nation's refugee policies is causing fear and alarm for immigrants in the U.S. whose family members will be affected. (Jan. 27) AP

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Confusion, worry and outrage grew Saturday as President Donald Trump's crackdown on refugees and citizens from seven majority-Muslim countries took effect. (Jan. 28) AP

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Protests erupt at U.S. airports over refugee ban

Protesters: 'We are people; we are not illegal'

'Give me your tired, your poor': Statue of Libertys immigration poem

Trump's refugee screening takes immediate effect

Protestors rally at JFK Airport over President Trump's executive order

Trump says refugee crackdown 'not a Muslim ban'

Iran says U.S. citizens are no longer welcome in the country

Activists protest Trump's immigration policy at JFK airport

Sudanese react to US control on travelers from Muslim countries

Refugees detained at U.S. borders challenge Donald Trump

Immigrants with affected family fearful of ban

Trump refugee ban prompts outrage

Alex Little(Photo: File)

Thomas Paine wrote in the dark winter of 1776 that "these are the times that try men's souls."

In those early days of our country, when its birth was not assured, Paine observed that "the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country."

These words describe well our Republican politicians in Washington, including Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker.

Make no mistake: We are facing a crisis in the United States. We have placed a disturbed, authoritarian charlatan in the White House, and the Republican Party's leaders are more interested in using his election to aggrandize themselves than to serve the people of the United States.

On Friday, on a day marked to remember the horrors of the Holocaust, President Trump closed the country's borders to women and children fleeing a regime in Syria who slaughters them indiscriminately. Anne Frank and her family were denied entry as refugees into the United States during World War II; 75 years later, a young Syrian girl is likely to suffer the same fate for the same reasons.

It gets worse. In the same executive order, President Trump established a litmus test for refugees that explicitly placed members of one religion at the front of the line for entry into our country, while barring access to those of a different faith.

Not even the spouses of American citizens are spared. Under the Republican Party's policy, our government will now block husbands and wives of some American citizens from reentering the United States, even if they hold a green card and have lived here legally for decades, once they travel outside of the country for any reason.

And that was just Friday. Earlier in the week, President Trump repeated the lie that there was massive voter fraud in the 2016 election. He personally called the director of the U.S. National Park Service to request aerial photographs to support the observably false claim that a million people attended his inauguration. And he proposed paying for a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico by imposing a staggering 20 percent tariff on Mexican imports, signalling a trade war with our third largest trading partner on his sixth day in office.

What did Tennessee's senators say about these matters?

Not a word.

At a time when our country needs what Paine might describe as "winter soldiers," who stand up when weaker men and women stand down, Senator Alexander and Senator Corker sit by the fire and smoke cigars.

They have chosen to acquiesce to partisan motives, unwilling to muster even a gesture of support for religious equality, the moral righteousness of protecting refugees, or the baseline expectation that a President should behave more like a statesman than a Kardashian.

The unwillingness of our Senators to stand up to President Trump is a personal moral failure. (The history books their grandchildren read will judge them harshly, and rightfully so.) But more troubling is the impact of their cowardice on others in Congress.

Only a year before Thomas Paine decried the "sunshine patriot," then-General George Washington confirmed a court-martial for cowardice by a soldier in the Continental Army, declaring it "the most injurious (crime) to an Army, and the last to be forgiven; inasmuch as it may, and often does happen, that the Cowardice of a single Officer may prove the Distruction of the whole Army."

By failing to act courageously, Alexander and Corker give aid and comfort to other weak-willed Republicans in Congress. We cannot afford their silence much longer.

Alex Little is a lawyer in Nashville.

Response from Sen. Bob Corker

Editor's note: Sen. Bob Corker's office sent his response to The Tennessean Sunday regarding President Trump's executive order on refugees.

We all share a desire to protect the American people, but this executive order has been poorly implemented, especially with respect to green card holders. The administration should immediately make appropriate revisions, and it is my hope that following a thorough review and implementation of security enhancements that many of these programs will be improved and reinstated.

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The cowardice of Republican partisanship - The Tennessean