Free Republic

Albert Speer Jr. knows the true origins of sustainable development. Yet, environmentalism and sustainability under the Third Reich is an area in which proverbial "good" Nazi attitudes could be entertained and maintained even though it is largely a taboo subject to the post-modern Western public that has adopted a green conscience as its new form of ethics. As such, while Nazi racism was evil, Nazi environmentalism was good. This too was learned from Albert Speer Sr.

The US President warned the UK would be “at the back of the queue” for a trade deal with America if it quit Brussels. But his threat provoked outrage and scorn from pro-Brexit campaigners, who dismissed it as yet another scaremongering ploy from the pro-EU lobby. Mr Obama, who will no longer be in office when decisions on a trade deal are made, delivered a lecture to the British people on why he thinks it is in the UK’s, America’s and the world’s best interests for Britain to vote to stay in the EU on June 23. He weighed into...

Turkish police made a hundred arrests across Istanbul and nine other Turkish provinces connected with a wide-ranging investigation of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen. Gulen, 72, currently lives in Pennsylvania, but is considered a powerful “arch-foe” of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as the Rudaw news service puts it. Gulen “runs an international Islamic network of schools, businesses, media outlets, and charity organizations from his exile home in Pennsylvania” and is “believed to be deeply influential in the Turkish judicial system and police,” according to Rudaw. In fact, he is so influential that Erdogan has accused him of trying to...

Former FBI Director Robert Mueller, right, arrives for a court hearing in San Francisco Thursday. Mueller has been overseeing talks about a settlement between Volkswagen, the U.S. government, and the car company's customers. ================================================================================================================== A buyback of emissions-cheating cars was one solution Volkswagen offered in federal court Thursday, outlining an agreement between the carmaker and the Justice Department over hundreds of thousands of diesel vehicles that were sold in the U.S. despite not meeting pollution standards. Car owners would be able to choose between having their vehicle fixed or accepting a buyback; financial details weren't revealed about the plan, which...

German police Thursday arrested two teenagers with Islamist backgrounds over an explosion that wounded three people at a Sikh temple, labeling it a "terrorist attack". The blast that hit an Indian wedding party at the entrance to the temple in the western city of Essen last Saturday injured three men, one of them seriously. Police arrested two 16-year-olds with known links to regional Islamists over the attack, said city police chief Frank Richter. "We have to presume it was a terrorist act -- religiously motivated terror by the Islamist scene," Richter said in a statement, without linking the youths to...

Germany’s ruling coalition plans to look into stripping Islamic State fighters of their German citizenship to prevent them from coming back to the country, a draft document seen by Reuters on Wednesday shows. More than 800 people have traveled from Germany to Syria and northern Iraq in recent years and around 70 returnees took part in combat or military training there, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency said earlier this month. […] The coalition is also considering depriving German supporters of Islamic State of identity cards and passports to prevent them from traveling to areas controlled by Islamic State,...

The anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) said on Sunday Islam is not compatible with the German constitution and vowed to press for bans on minarets and burqas at its party congress in two weeks' time. The AfD punished Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats in three regional elections last month, profiting from popular angst about how Germany can cope with an influx of migrants, over a million of whom arrived last year. "Islam is in itself a political ideology that is not compatible with the constitution," AfD deputy leader Beatrix von Storch told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. "We are in...

Media freedom around the world has suffered a “deep and disturbing decline” due to by pressure from governments and businesses, an international media watchdog said Wednesday. The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said in an annual report that many of the world’s leaders have developed “a paranoia” about journalism and are clamping down on the media, while coverage in privately-owned outlets is increasingly shaped by corporate interests. …

Germany fell by four places in the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index, released on Wednesday, after more and more journalists came under attack at right-wing demonstrations in 2015. The Bundesrepublik, nevertheless, came in at a respectable 16th place, placing behind other northern European countries, such as Finland which topped the list once again, but scoring markedly better than the USA (41) and France (45). In the report the reasons given for Germany’s slip down the ranking were threats against journalists from the general public rather than greater restrictions imposed by the state. “Violence and hostility all the way up...

Reply to Slander Being defamed by a UCLA Vice Chancellor for defending the Jews. April 20, 2016 David Horowitz    Today a letter attacking me was sent to all members of the UCLA community – that would be nearly 50,000 people I think – by Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, Jerry Kang. The Vice Chancellor’s letter attacked me as a “provocateur” who last year “put up hostile posters accusing two student organizations — the Muslim Student Association (MSA) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) — of being murderers and terrorists.” This is a lie. Actually it...

Since Erdogan was elected president in August 2014 he has sued at least 1,845 Turks for insulting him. Now his judicial challenges have been exported to Europe. Angela Merkel's decision to allow Böhmermann's prosecution hardly complies with the European culture of civil liberties. Now the Turkish journalists and artists will even suffer more." — Rebecca Harms, co-chair of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance at the European Parliament. The trouble is, the more Erdogan realizes that his blackmailing works, the more willing he will be to export his poor democratic culture into Europe. Merkel has set the wrong precedent...

The NATO-Russia Council is meeting for the first time in nearly two years, with the U.S.-led alliance planning to object to what it deems provocative and dangerous actions by Moscow’s military. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday’s meeting at alliance headquarters is being held to exchange views on Ukraine and other issues, but also to discuss improving “mechanisms of risk-reduction related to military activities.” …

The administrative authority of the European Parliament has expressed security concerns after the discovery of CDs containing Islamic State (IS) propaganda in the possession of two chauffeurs with its external driving service. Several sources with knowledge of the situation told Spiegel that one of the discoveries had been made in Strasbourg, where the parliament holds its plenary sessions, and the other in Brussels, where most of its work is conducted. Both employees of the private chauffeur service were fired and police are investigating. After obtaining information that other chauffeurs in the service had criminal records, the European Parliament Presidium made...

On Tuesday, Germany’s Federal Statistics Office released figures showing that 1.038 million people were receiving basic security benefits at the end of last year — the highest number since the benefits were introduced in 2003 and 3.5 percent more than in 2014. Anyone over the age of 18 who is unable to work more than three hours a day under normal working conditions, and those whose age pensions are inadequate to live on, are eligible for the benefits. The statistics office reported that more than half of the recipients — about 536,000 people — are senior citizens, while around 502,000...

The world economy is nearing what international policymakers fear could be a dangerous turning point, as populist uprisings in the United States and Europe threaten to unravel decades-old alliances that have fostered free trade and deepened economic ties. The tension has reached boiling point in Britain, which in two months will vote on whether to leave the European Union. The International Monetary Fund, warned that a so-called Brexit is a “real possibility,” one that could usher in a new era of uncertainty and undermine the already fragile global recovery. But the unrest is not limited to the United Kingdom. Anti-EU...

President Barack Obama will drop in on three of America's most important allies this week, possibly for the last time. But he isn't expecting an adoring reception in any of them. The U.S. relationship with all three nations is distressed, and Obama will be doing more than a little damage control. In Saudi Arabia, where he lands on Wednesday, Obama will try to soothe anger over his nuclear deal with Iran and his increasingly public complaints about the Saudi kingdom. In London, he’ll make amends for comments about British foreign policy that rattled the teacups at 10 Downing Street. And...

The Central Council of Muslims responded in unequivocal terms to a hard anti-Islam stance announced by the populist Alternative for Germany party over the weekend. “For the first time since Hitler’s Germany there is a party that once again is discrediting a whole religious community and threatening its existence,” Central Council of Muslims chairman Aiman Mazyek told public broadcaster NDR on Monday morning. He was responding to interviews with the AfD leadership published on Sunday that commit the party to a tough anti-Islam line. […] The party’s deputy chairman, Alexander Gauland, went further in comments to the FAS (Frankfurter Allgemeine...

The Tata Steel sale has revived the battle between protectionists and free traders, a debate that became particularly acute in the run-up to the creation of the World Trade Organisation in 1995, which marked the success of “free traders” all around the world. In the protectionist camp, there is now a wide range of political parties from the extreme left to the extreme right: from Syriza to Ukip, from the Front National to Podemos. The common element for all these parties is that they dream of returning to a time when “we were in control”; when we could easily open...

The Chancellor says income tax could rise by 8% and billions would be cut from public services if the UK votes to leave the EU... says Treasury analysis has found that UK tax receipts would be £36bn-a-year lower after 15 years... the amount the officials calculate the exchequer would lose if Britain was forced to enter a trade deal similar to that which Canada has recently negotiated. The figure is the same as eight pence in the pound added to income tax. The 'Canadian model' is the scenario that many who want to leave say would be in Britain's best...

Germany's right-wing populist AfD party drew heavy fire Monday after two of its leaders labelled Islam incompatible with the country's values and constitution. The three-year-old Alternative for Germany party, which harshly opposes Chancellor Angela Merkel's liberal refugee policy, plans to adopt an anti-Islamic manifesto at a conference this month. The chairman of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany Aiman Mazyek charged that "the AfD is riding a wave of Islamophobia". "It is the first time since Hitler's Germany that there is a party which discredits and existentially threatens an entire religious community," he told public broadcaster NDR. The opposition...