Free Republic

An Amsterdam-based abortionist who prescribes abortion pills to clients over the internet is suing the FDA for seizing abortion pills she illegally prescribed to U.S. patients after she violated an FDA cease and desist letter. Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, an abortionist who once plied her trade by boat but later moved her business model to the internet and even drones, together with her lawyer Richard Hearn, filed the federal lawsuit in Idaho Monday. Gomperts claims that by cracking down on the illegal distribution of abortion pills, the government is denying women a “constitutionally protected right to terminate their unwanted pregnancies.” Gomperts...

French President Emmanuel Macron has floated the concept of essentially giving Iran $15 billion to comply with the infamous multilateral nuclear deal that the Ayatollahs have already violated. Some observers see Macron’s proposal as a statesman-like proposal to preserve peace and avoid war. Others believe that the Macron is making an effort to rehabilitate his own image domestically in France, since that nation has been beleaguered with riots and unrest virtually since the day Macron entered office. A third possibility exists: greed.

In this brand new SteynPost, Mark considers the latest attempt to discuss the demographic transformation of Europe without getting damned as a racist white supremacist, etc, and the crude arithmetic of the latest UN population statistics.

THE Dutch city of Dordrecht near Rotterdam is in lockdown after police said several people had been shot. Emergency services rushed to the scene, with 15 police cars in the street, two ambulances, a trauma helicopter, and several police officers, according to a PvdA member from the city. Many local residents also rushed out on the street as panic ensued. The city has been partially closed off.

As of today, close to 640,00 German citizens are legally permitted to carry a deterrent gun or similar self-defense weapon. To put things in perspective, in 2014, there were just 260,000. That’s nearly a 250 percent increase in just five years. Die Welt reports that these figures were able to see the light of day thanks to a survey that was conducted by regional daily, Rheinische Post, at the interior ministries of all 16 federal states. According to the data obtained, in the last year alone, the increase in small firearm licenses rose about 9 percent compared to the same...

The following is a first-person report of refugees trying to flee to Greece. It’s 10 p.m. at night and we’re boarding a Greek Coast Guard vessel on the island of Lesvos. The captain assures us we will pick up 150 Muslim refugees in the Aegean Sea tonight. It’s an every night occurrence and part of an underreported illegal immigration and refugee crisis in Europe. They come from places like Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Africa. Many Americans heard about Europe’s huge influx of refugees in 2015 and 2016. But they may not have heard the rest of the story, which Full...

It sounded like a historical moment was in the offing. For the first time, Europe’s finance ministers were seriously planning on publicly denouncing tax havens by presenting a black list of countries that lure companies through tax-saving schemes. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said the countries on the list were “not doing enough to fight tax evasion.” Fellow Frenchman Pierre Moscovici, the European Union’s commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, called for vigorous sanctions. […] That was one and a half years ago, and that momentum has largely disappeared. This is partly because the black list had several fundamental...

Teen climate activist Greta Thunberg was joined by swelling and excited crowds of American teenagers at a protest outside the UN headquarters in New York on Friday, in a further blossoming of the youth environment movement given extra thrust by the Swede’s transatlantic boat crossing. Some US children said they were at their first ever climate demonstration; others said they had been passionate about the environment for a while but had been galvanized to act by Thunberg’s rising profile. On Friday afternoon, Thunberg and two young activists were spontaneously invited inside the UN for a meeting with a senior leader,...

His mom had told him not to ride on the autobahn (Newser) – An 8-year-old boy got a stern talking-to earlier this week when he took his mom's Volkswagen for a joyride on the German autobahn, but after pulling the stunt again—hitting speeds 112 mph—he's been put into psychological counselling, the AP reports. Dortmund police said Friday the grade-schooler stole the keys to the Golf around midnight and drove from his hometown Soest to Dortmund, about 30 miles away. Police say another motorist reported the child driving at high speeds in the city, saying "red lights and driving regulations did...

Philip Hammond has said that MPs will move against the Government to stop no deal next week, and cannot wait until the scheduled debate on Brexit in late September. Under the timetable set out by Boris Johnson, Parliament will not debate Brexit or the upcoming Queen's speech until October 21 and 22. Mr Hammond said he had "always made clear that I am not interested in bringing down the Government" but that he wanted the Government to acknowledge that "the majority is opposed to a no deal Brexit.”

Video at link: ....“And Media outlets that give room to such criticism of migration can be shut down.” “The compact for migration is legalization of mass migration “

Two German bishops endorse book calling for Church blessing for homosexual couples August 26, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Sources in Germany have alerted LifeSiteNews that two German bishops – the Vice-President of the German Bishops’ Conference, Bishop Franz-Josef Bode (Osnabrück), and Hamburg’s Archbishop Stefan Hesse – have written a preface for the book With the Blessing of the Church? Same-Sex Partnership in the Focus of Pastoral Care (Mit dem Segen der Kirche? Gleichgeschlechtliche Partnerschaft im Fokus der Pastoral). The book, which has just been published in Germany by the publishing house Herder Verlag, was edited by Dr. Stephan Loos, Dr....

Most of the articles you read decrying the purportedly wretched state of the poor in the United States, blaming prosperous people for the "inequality" of our "income distribution" (as if rich people got that way by expropriating the earnings of the poor, because someone "redistributed" their income to the rich) are phony.  They rely on income reported to the IRS and ignore the substantial untaxed benefits supplied to low-income people. A new study from the public policy research group Just Facts corrects for this ignored income and finds that our poorest 20% consume as much as the average in...

Bonjour, FLOTUS! Melania Trump arrived Saturday in France wearing one of her brightest ensembles yet. The first lady — disembarking from Air Force One in the city of Biarritz with President Donald Trump for the G7 summit, where he'll convene with world leaders — looked radiant in a tie-dye midi dress from Calvin Klein. The canary yellow smock, priced at $530.16 according to Net-a-Porter, is made from denim and features white and pink scalloped patterns that resemble flowers, blossoming at the right shoulder and the opposite hip. Melania completed her look with oversized sunglasses and bright pink stiletto heels, which...

European Union officials have drawn up an aggressive 173-page plan to counter both President Donald Trump’s trade moves and American tech giants including Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook. According to a document obtained by POLITICO, European Commission officials are pushing their president-elect, Ursula von der Leyen, to set up a European Future Fund that would invest more than $100 billion in equity stakes in high-potential European companies. The goal: get Europe competing head-on with the American and Chinese tech giants it has lagged behind for decades. They’re also advocating for Europe to show more grit in Trump’s trade war,...

The news first reported by Bloomberg on the weekend piqued the interest of economists worldwide. German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, the report said, had for the first time mulled the possibility of putting together an emergency stimulus package to prop up the economy, should a full-blown recession beset the nation. This in itself revealed a fundamental change in thinking and philosophy as for a decade or so Scholz’ predecessor, Wolfgang Schäuble, had been an unwavering supporter of a policy that just wouldn’t accept any fresh borrowing. His balanced budget policy had even made inroads into the German language, with lawmakers...

Italy's Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has announced he will resign after his populist government lost the support of a key coalition member. Mr Conte accused Matteo Salvini, leader of the right-wing League party, of trying to ruin the ruling coalition for personal and political gain, risking financial instability for Italy.

Widespread waste and fraud associated with China’s Belt and Road Initiative has been unearthed after the country’s state railway group was forced to admit this month that a significant amount of cargo containers shuttling between Chinese factories and European cities were empty. The admission by the state-run China Railway – the sole operator of the lines – followed an investigation by the Chinese Business Journal, a newspaper supervised by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, which found that in one extreme case only one of 41 containers on a particular train actually carried goods. The belt and road plan, masterminded...

"Do Americans Need Air-Conditioning?" a New York Times piece asked in July. Air conditioning, it argued, is bad for the environment and makes us less human. It ran quotes suggesting that, "first world discomfort is a learned behavior", and urging "a certain degree of self-imposed suffering". If environmentalists ruled the world, air conditioning wouldn’t exist. And there’s a place like that. 90% of American households have air conditioning. As do 86% of South Koreans, 82% of Australians, 60% of Chinese, 16% of Brazilians and Mexicans, 9% of Indonesians and less than 5% of Europeans. A higher percentage of Indian households...

The 1972 Act is the vehicle that sees regulations flow into UK law directly from the EU’s lawmaking bodies in Brussels.The announcement of the Act’s repeal marks a historic step in returning lawmaking powers from Brussels to the UK. We are taking back control of our laws, as the public voted for in 2016.The repeal of the European Communities Act 1972 will take effect when Britain formally leaves the EU on October 31.Speaking after signing the legislation that will crystallise in law the upcoming repeal of the ECA, the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU Steve Barclay said:...