Free Republic

President Trump rallying massive crowds in Macon, Georgia and Chattanooga, Tennessee ahead of the mid-term elections. The Republicans are planning a final rally tonight in Cape Girardeau, Missouri with talk show host Rush Limbaugh coming back to his hometown.... A very interesting political development in the UK over the weekend with Friday's revelation by London' top cop of a criminal investigation involving members of the Labor Party.... In Germany politicians in the government parties, the Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, are calling for the government's domestic intelligence agency to monitor the anti-mass immigration Alternative for Germany.... In Japan the party...

FULL TITLE: EU votes for total ban on organizations opposed to mass Muslim migration, thought police to be created “The Parliament is concerned by the increasing normalisation of fascism, racism and xenophobia and calls on EU states to ban neo-fascist and neo-Nazi groups.” The problem with this is that the EU labels as “neo-fascist” and “neo-Nazi” all those who oppose their agenda of mass Muslim migration and want to preserve European states as free societies. “MEPs argue, that there is a legal laxity towards ‘right-wing organisations’ in some member states and that this is one of the reasons behind the...

Two years ago, eleven HDP deputies were arrested in Turkey. After two years of imprisonment, the European Court of Human Rights is now to decide. On 4 November, eleven deputies of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) were arrested in Turkey. In the middle of the night, party leaders Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, as well as Nursel Aydoğan, Sırrı Süreyya Önder, Selma Irmak, Ziya Pir, Ferhat Encü, Gülser Yıldırım, İdris Baluken, Leyla Birlik and İmam Taşçıer were brought out of their homes. While Sırrı Süreyya Önder, Ziya Pir and İmam Taşçıer were later released against mandatory reporting, others were remanded...

The two videos below concern the recent gang-rape in the German city of Freiburg, where a young woman was (apparently) roofied and then gang-raped by culture-enrichers outside a nightclub. The first video features a challenge issued by the mayor of another city to the mayor of Freiburg, demanding the latter’s support for a change in immigration policy. What makes it interesting is that the mayor issuing the challenge is actually a member of the Greens party. The second video concerns a demonstration by the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland, Alternative for Germany) about what happened in Freiburg. Local authorities were forced...

European leaders are opening the door to possible sanctions on Iran in the wake of terror plots across the continent -- even as they criticize the Trump administration for reimposing sanctions on the Islamic Republic’s oil exports and financial dealings. Denmark’s intelligence agency on Tuesday said that it had foiled an Iranian plot to kill an opposition activist, and had arrested a Norwegian of Iranian descent. The suspect has denied the allegations and is being held in custody. Iran’s Foreign Ministry has denied any involvement and has issued a “strong protest” to the Danish government. The Wall Street Journal reported...

Germany's Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that only 39 percent of large items, such as tanks and helicopters, delivered to the Bundeswehr in 2017 did not require improvement before deployment. The quality of items delivered was "still improvable," said Parliamentary State Secretary Peter Tauber, who until February was general secretary of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic (CDU) party. The admission, which came in response to an inquiry from Left party parliamentarian Matthias Höhn, coincides with German troop involvement in a major NATO exercise in Norway and follows calls for improved readiness from defense officials, including Defense Minister Ursula von...

U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell occupies one of the most critical positions in American diplomacy, not only because Germany represents the EU’s largest economy and has disproportionate influence on the continent, but because of its pivotal role with respect to both Iran’s efforts to evade U.S. snapback sanctions, and Russia’s efforts to provide energy to and thus leverage over European nations. With the looming November 5th date for the snapback of sanctions on Iran’s most critical sectors including energy, shipping and finance, I thought there would be no better guest to have on the Big Ideas with Ben Weingarten...

The popular US dating site eHarmony is now owned by Munich-based broadcaster ProSieben. Although it is primarily known for its TV franchise, ProSieben also owns one of Germany’s largest dating companies. German media company ProSiebenSat.1 purchased the matchmaking site eHarmony in the company’s first major e-commerce deal since launching a joint venture with investment firm General Atlantic. The Munich-based broadcaster announced the takeover on Monday, with ProSieben CEO Max Conze calling the deal “an excellent fit.” ProSieben already owns German online dating giant Parship. Like eHarmony, Parship uses an algorithm to suggest matches for people from its database. Users also...

Not easy being a tourist. Went to Germany for some fun but encountered multiculturalism instead. After a long while I accidentally found out that the central station, where we booked our hotel, is a no-go zone. Good times...

He was a feminine boy, averse to manual work, who was "annoyingly subservient" to superior officers as a young soldier and had nightmares that were "very suggestive of homosexual panic." The mass killings that he later perpetrated stemmed in part from a desperate loathing of his own submissive weakness, and the humiliations of being beaten by a sadistic father. What is believed to be the first psychological profile of Hitler commissioned by the Office of Strategic Services, a predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency, was posted this month by Cornell University Law Library on its Web site (www.lawschool.cornell.edu/library/donovan/hitler/). Although declassified...

World War I ended with the Ottoman Empire vanquished and facing imminent collapse, its doomed alliance with Imperial Germany costing hundreds of thousands of Ottoman lives and dealing a death blow to the already creaking empire. But 100 years after the surrender of the Ottomans to the Allied powers at Mudros on October 30, 1918, the Great War is in no way seen as a pointless waste or even a defeat by modern Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Rather than focusing on the four years of devastating conflict that ended in the capitulation and eventual dissolution of the empire,...

Now we know why Denmark cut itself off from Germany and Sweden and launched a massive security operation in September. It wasn’t against an ISIS-style terror attack, but against an Iranian plot to murder Ahwaz activists. The plot caused Copenhagen to close its bridges. Now the full story can be told and it may rock Europe and EU relations with Iran. Denmark’s ambassador is on the way home from Tehran. Iran’s pro-government Fars News is complaining about a bias against Iran, denying Iran had anything to do with the plot. Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen described the suspected plot as “totally unacceptable” Here...

Who doesn’t love a pay rise? Or a windfall. Or a boost in the return of your savings or investments? Sometimes, however, depending on your circumstances, a marginal pay rise can cost you more than you might think. Take a €5,000 pay rise, for example. The net return to you of this is just €2,400, or €216 a month, if you’re a higher-rate taxpayer. And yet it could put you out of reach of getting a grant for third level, which could be worth about €72,000 for three children; from getting a medical card in your senescence, and discounted childcare....

Stocks around the globe rose in the wake of the election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and German Chancellor Angela Merkel announcing she would step down as leader of her party. Brazilian stocks soared on Monday morning, pushing its benchmark Bovespa stock index up 3.1 percent to a record high. Stocks retreated later in the day, as investors booked profits from the run up in stocks that seen the iShares MSCI Brazil ETF rise more than 18 percent this month. Germany’s DAX 30 had its best daily gain in nearly two months, rising 1.2 percent. Italy’s FTSE MIB Italy index...

The White House has confirmed that there has been a complete disconnect between the Palestinian Authority and the Trump administration. Former US secretary of state John Kerry met in London with a close associate of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, Hussein Agha. Stall, play for time, do not break. Trump will not remain in office for a long, within a year Trump would not be in the White House. Kerry offered to help Sheppard his alternative peace initiative and promised to help garner international support from Europeans, Arab states and the international community. He promised to use all his contacts and...

The leaders of Turkey, Russia, France, and Germany have reiterated calls for a UN-backed political process to end the war in Syria that has killed hundreds of thousands of people.German Chancellor Angela Merkel said after a summit in Istanbul on October 27 that "the meeting demonstrated there is common determination to solve the problem."A joint solution can be achieved, not through military means, but only through political effort under the UN aegis," she added.Along with Merkel, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and French President Emmanuel Macron gathered for the talks in search of an end to...

The firm favourite appears to be from Merkel’s own Christian Democrats Party (CDU) – its secretary-general Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. Kramp-Karrenbauer has been a close ally of her embattled leader, who faced a disastrous result at the ballot box recently. Today, CDU sources said CDU Kramp-Karrenbauer she will put herself forward for the top job at the party’s conference in Hamburg in December. Born in 1962, Merkel’s potential successor has been dubbed “AKK” in the German media and became the first woman ever to govern the German state of Saarland.

"Der Spiegel" magazine reports that Angela Merkel is not running for re-election as leader of the Christian Democratic Union following yesterday's losses in the Hessian state election. The CDU will hold its conference in December where a leadership election is planned. There is a catch because she still wants to be Chancellor according to the German media. She has apparently not given up the fight against opponents, but is trying to find a way to stay in power. That is the sense of the situation for now. Her move today comes after yesterday's dramatic losses for both her own CDU...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has announced she will give up leadership of her center-right Christian Democrat Union (CDU) party after 18 years in the post, German media has reported. Merkel announced during a meeting with officials that she will not seek to run for re-election at the party's convention in December. But she made clear that she wanted to remain as chancellor, a position she has held since 2005, CNN affiliate RTL reported, citing party sources. Angela Merkel's Bavarian allies lose majority in crushing vote The announcement is a sign of Merkel's weakened power within her own party, and waning...

Italy’s far-right League party intervened on Sunday to block efforts by a Muslim association to turn a former hospital chapel into a mosque. The Muslim group last week made the highest offer for the chapel in the northern city of Bergamo at an auction organized by a local hospital, outbidding the Romanian Orthodox Church which had been using the building for its religious services. But the project proved short-lived, with League leaders in the wealthy Lombardy region, which includes Bergamo, announcing they would halt the sale by using a 2004 law that enables them to intervene and safeguard cultural sites....