Free Republic

BERLIN (AP) – German climate activists sprayed orange paint onto Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate on Sunday morning to urge the German government to take more urgent action against climate change. Members of the group the Last Generation used fire extinguishers filled with paint to spray all six columns of the popular landmark in Germany’s capital. The group’s priorities include getting Germany to stop using all fossil fuels by 2030 and take short-term measures, including imposing a general speed limit of 100 kilometers per hour (62 mph) on highways, to cut emissions more quickly.

...An executive summary of the committee’s final report released on Monday provided readers with the committee’s theory of the case against Trump.... ...But there are a number of reasons these particular charges are likely a legal overreach.... ...The threshold for criminalizing speech is a high hurdle to clear. The seminal 1969 Supreme Court case on the matter, Brandenburg v. Ohio, established that it is not criminal even to advocate the violent overthrow of the U.S. government before a group of armed and menacing members of the Ku Klux Klan. Indeed, the courts have spent decades making it more difficult to...

A volunteer archaeologist has discovered an ancient stash of Celtic coins, whose "value must have been immense," in Brandenburg, a state in northeastern Germany. The 41 gold coins were minted more than 2,000 years ago, and are the first known Celtic gold treasure in Brandenburg, Manja Schüle, the Minister of Culture in Brandenburg announced in December 2021. The coins are curved, a feature that inspired the German name "regenbogenschüsselchen," which translates to "rainbow cups." Just like the legend that there's a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, "in popular belief, rainbow cups were found where a rainbow...

Perhaps President’s Ronald Reagan’s most famous and influential speeches was his “Berlin Wall speech” at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany 34 years ago today on June 12, 1987. It was in this speech (at about 12:00 in the video above) that Reagan made his famous and history-changing demand “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” That statement and speech helped changed the course of history, and there’s even an entire Wikipedia entry for “Tear down this wall” (in addition to an extensive page for Berlin Wall). According to the Wikipedia entry, “The speech was also a source of considerable controversy...

Mercedes-Benz owner Daimler's profits slumped by almost two-thirds in 2019 as the legal costs of the "dieselgate" scandal and heavy investments in electric technology took their toll. The German carmaker's net profit fell to €2.7bn (£2.3bn) for 2019, it announced on Tuesday, almost €5bn worse than the previous year's performance. It also slashed its dividend from €3.25 per share to only 90 cents to help preserve cash to plough into electric vehicle technology. Daimler is carrying out swingeing cuts to its global workforce as it tries to save more than €1bn in costs. In November it said it would cut...

Voting has ended in Saxony and Brandenburg, two states in the country's former east. Exit polls suggest that the far-right AfD will become the second biggest party in both regions.

A German far-right politician, whose party claims "Islam does not belong to Germany," has converted to Islam and resigned his post. Arthur Wagner, a leading member of Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the eastern state of Brandenburg, left his position on the party's state executive committee on January 11 citing "personal reasons," according to Andreas Kalbitz, AfD's chairman AfD in the state. Kalbitz told CNN that he only learned about Wagner's conversion in a telephone conversation with him a few days later. "I was very surprised," he said. "He has been very active in the Christian wing of the party."

An eastern German city has imposed a temporary ban on new refugees in an effort to stem a number of recent violent incidents. Cottbus, about 120 kilometres southeast of Berlin, has been rocked by violence from refugees and right-wing extremists since the start of this year. Earlier this week, Brandenburg state police reported that two male Syrian teenagers were arrested under the suspicion of injuring a German teenager in the face with a knife. The 16-year-old sustained non life-threatening injuries in what started as an altercation between Syrian and German school acquaintances near a tram station. The incident happened just...

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster in Brandenburg is suing the state over what they say is their right to post signs around town. […] The FSM church explained in a statement that in December, it had discussed with local authorities its status and agreed it could qualify as an “ideological community”. They therefore had the right to post signs advertising their “noodle mass” — just as Protestant and Catholic churches advertise their own masses and gatherings with roadside signs. Then, Brandenburg Culture Minister Sabine Kunst declared that because the spaghetti monster followers were not officially designated as a...

Via BuzzFeed. To be honest, I’m not sure my headline captures what she’s saying. Watch the clip and ask yourself if she’s talking about hateful acts or hateful speech. Not so clear, is it? She mentions speech and rhetoric and the First Amendment but she keeps coming back to prosecuting actions. If all she’s saying is that she’ll charge anyone who acts violently towards Muslims, that’s not newsworthy. That’s her doing her job. If what she’s saying is that she’ll charge anyone who speaks violently about Muslims, that’s something else. She could have spoken perfectly clearly on this subject if...

Oliver Wendell Holmes made the analogy during a controversial Supreme Court case that was overturned more than 40 years ago. Ninety-three years ago, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote what is perhaps the most well-known -- yet misquoted and misused -- phrase in Supreme Court history: "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic." Without fail, whenever a free speech controversy hits, someone will cite this phrase as proof of limits on the First Amendment. And whatever that controversy may be, "the law"--as some have curiously...

The euroskeptic Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has taken big strides forward in regional elections in two eastern German states. Results are emerging from votes in Thuringia and Brandenburg. Results of exit polls released just before the close of voting on Sunday showed the Alternative for Germany (AfD), which was founded only last year, had gained 10 percent of the vote in Thuringia and 12 percent of the vote in Brandenburg, meaning it has won a place in the parliaments of both states for the first time. A fortnight ago the AfD was elected to the regional parliament in another...

The last surviving stretch of German autobahn built under Hitler is set to disappear, almost 80 years after it was first constructed. The four-kilometer stretch of road on the A11, northeast of Berlin in the state of Brandenburg, dates from 1936 and was part of Hitler’s massive motorway-building program of the Reichsautobahn.Newspaper Welt am Sonntag reported that the road survived Nazism and Communism and, despite some repair work, is still the original stretch from the 1930s. …

The sleepy hamlet of Mittenwalde in eastern Germany could become one of the richest towns in the world if Berlin were to repay it an outstanding debt that dates back to 1562. A certificate of debt, found in a regional archive, attests that Mittenwalde lent Berlin 400 guilders on May 28 1562, to be repaid with six percent interest per year. According to Radio Berlin Brandenburg RBB.L, the debt would amount to 11,200 guilders today, which is roughly equivalent to 112 million euros. Adjusting for compound interest and inflation, the total debt now lies in the trillions, by RBB's estimates....

President Obama blinked first and the Russians took advantage. Not that he really tried anyway...He has no stomach for confrontation. Our allies, Poland and The Czech Republic won't be receiving the missile shields promised under the previous administration. Iran will be pursuing it's nuclear ambitions, Russia is free to do pretty much whatever it wants and Israel is just pissed and who could blame them. And to top it all off, Joe Biden makes the statement, "there is no threat there", referring to Iran. It's obvious foreign policy is not one of Obama's strong points, so we're going to dig...

There are no shortcuts to history, but don’t tell that to Barack Obama. In his ongoing campaign to appropriate John F. Kennedy’s aura, the presumptive Democratic nominee has accepted an invitation to speak in Berlin later this month. It’s not unusual for American presidential candidates to visit Germany’s capital in an election year. But the venue Obama’s handlers have chosen – Berlin’s symbolic and history-laden Brandenburg Gate – is obviously intended to recall Kennedy’s famous “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech in Berlin in 1963. The political subtext is clear: “BHO” is JFK’s political heir.

Democratic US presidential candidate Barack Obama has requested permission to give an address at the Brandenburg Gate when he visits Berlin later this month, according to German media reports. Although it's still not official, various German media are reporting that Obama's team has contacted the Berlin Senate to discuss the possibility of the presidential hopeful delivering an outdoor speech in front of the famous landmark. It would likely be his only public speech during an upcoming European tour which is set to include stops in Germany, France and the UK. If permission is granted, the address would be loaded with...

See for example this thread first. Ten'years back at the Brandenburg Gate "Dutch" sealed the Communists' fate A clarion call to "Tear Down This Wall" A speech that the lib'rals still hate!

This day in history -- on June 12, 1987 President Reagan delivered his "Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate." Thank you. Thank you, very much. Chancellor Kohl, Governing Mayor Diepgen, ladies and gentlemen: Twenty four years ago, President John F. Kennedy visited Berlin, and speaking to the people of this city and the world at the city hall. Well since then two other presidents have come, each in his turn to Berlin. And today, I, myself, make my second visit to your city. We come to Berlin, we American Presidents, because it's our duty to speak in this place of freedom....