Free Republic

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, not a strong supporter of President Trump over the past four years, recently described the decision by Twitter to ban Trump’s account on the digital platform as “problematic.”According to Merkel’s spokesman, “The right to freedom of opinion is of fundamental importance … Given that, the chancellor considers it problematic that the president's accounts have been permanently suspended.”Jens Zimmermann, a member of the German Parliament, described the situation in similar terms.“It [the Twitter ban] is problematic because we have to ask on which basis was it made, on which laws and what does it mean for the...

Political elites worldwide have criticized big tech companies for banning President Donald Trump from their social media platforms. At present, the president has been banned from Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat, Reddit, and Instagram. Twitter permanently removed Trump’s account, saying that his recent posts were in violation of the “Glorification of Violence Policy.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Twitter’s ban on Trump “problematic,” and said that freedom of opinion is an essential right of “elementary significance,” her spokesperson, Steffen Siebert, said on Jan 11. “This fundamental right can be intervened in, but according to the law and within the framework defined...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel considers it “problematic” that Twitter would toss President Trump off its social media platform, saying through a spokesmen Monday that the president’s ability to express his opinion is a fundamental right of “elementary significance.” “This fundamental right can be intervened in, but according to the law and within the framework defined by legislators — not according to a decision by the management of social media platforms,” Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters in Berlin. “Seen from this angle, the chancellor considers it problematic that the accounts of the U.S. president have now been permanently blocked,” he...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel considers U.S. President Donald Trump’s eviction from Twitter by the company “problematic,” her spokesman said Monday. Twitter permanently suspended Trump from the microblogging platform on Friday, citing a “risk of further incitement of violence” in the wake of the storming of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of the outgoing president. Asked about Twitter’s decision, Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said the operators of social media platforms “bear great responsibility for political communication not being poisoned by hatred, by lies and by incitement to violence.” He said it’s right not to “stand back” when such content is posted,...

The White House Coronavirus Task Force wants a crackdown in Nebraska in the name of preventing the spread of COVID-19. A task force report obtained by ABC News calls for increased testing and says: "Effective practices to decrease transmission in public spaces include requiring masks, limiting restaurant indoor capacity to less than 25% and closing bars until cases... Police in Toronto laying nine charges against a restuarant that opened for a second day in defiance of Ontario's coronavirus crackdown. Some 100 people gathered outside protesting in support of the restaurant... An Orthodox Jewish synagogue in New York City fined 15-thousand...

Writing in the Washington Post on Monday, the French and German foreign ministers... pledge for new cooperation. From an American interest perspective, however, this op-ed reads as little more than a petulant "we can only be friends if you put European concerns and interests first." ...On China...comes the veiled warning that Europe does not want to upset Xi Jinping. ...On Iran...Maas and Le Drian "want to reengage the United States on a joint approach.. On Russia...The words "ready to engage" reflect Europe's rising interest in reducing sanctions imposed on Russia... On trade...They want a one-sided tax.

EU member states Hungary and Poland have followed through on their threat to block the continental power bloc’s seven-year budget, after Brussels attempted to push it through with conditions the populist nations said were akin to “political enslavement”. European Union rules mean that many significant decisions — including whether to approve the bloc’s seven-yearly funding programs — must be taken unanimously, with any single member state able to veto decisions. This safeguard was triggered on Monday by conservative-led Hungary and Poland, who blocked the progress of the €1.8 trillion (£1.6 trillion, $2.1 trillion) ‘Multi annual Financial Framework’ (MFF) as an...

European lawmakers said on Friday time was running out to put in place any new trade agreement between London and the European Union before the end of an 11-month transition period following Britain’s departure from the bloc. Britain formally left the EU last January but has been following the bloc’s rules since then as the two sides try to agree on their future trade relationship. The transition period ends on Dec. 31 but negotiators are still trying to reach an agreement to protect nearly a trillion dollars in annual trade from possible quotas and tariffs.

The European Union is poised to move next week to impose tariffs on $4 billion of U.S. imports in retaliation for U.S. subsidies for planemaker Boeing, EU diplomats said, teeing up an eleventh-hour showdown with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Germany's largest party has delayed choosing a new leader and the likely successor to Chancellor Angela Markel for a second time. The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) had planned a convention in Stuttgart for December but confirmed on Twitter that the "pandemic situation" means the event could not take place. Current party leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer had announced in February that she would not run for chancellor in the expected 2021 election and would relinquish the party leadership. A first convention to choose the CDU leader in April was also postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Not long ago I made an entry titled "Woodrow Wilson absolutely hated the principles of the Founding Fathers", well, I am no fan of any progressive. They are all dangerous to me. So Wilson attacks the founding and I'm going to call it as it is. The same is said for Roosevelt. Progressivism is America's cancer and it's not just in one party. I came across an article on The Heritage Foundation titled "Progressivism: Still Dangerous After All These Years, which is primarily about Roosevelt. In it, they highlight one of the things that came out of Roosevelt's pie hole:(Direct...

French President Emmanuel Macron has accused Turkey having a "bellicose" attitude towards its allies, as the row over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad contiues unabated. In an interview broadcast on Saturday, Macron said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had displayed "belligerent behavior with Nato allies", adding that he hoped "things would calm down" and that the Turkish president "would not tell lies". France-Turkey showdown: A battle to shape the regional order Read More » His comments came as Erdogan, as well as a number of other leaders of Muslim-majority countries, continued to criticise Macron for comments he made describing...

Hundreds Of Turks & Azeris Take To The Streets In Lyon, France Looking For Armenians.

Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday urged Germans to “stick to what we know” about the coronavirus as the country battles a second wave of infections. “We know how we can protect ourselves. We can proceed with a more targeted response,” she said in Berlin. “But we also see with the rising numbers that if we do not stick to what we know about the virus, we get ourselves back into situations are that are decidedly difficult.” Merkel was speaking ahead of a key meeting with state leaders, brought forward to Wednesday, at which she is expected to push for tougher...

The European Union and its member states are the largest single donor bloc financing the PA. A Palestinian child can walk to school along a street named after Abu Jihad, who planned a bus hijacking that killed 38 Israelis, including 13 children, spend the day learning in a school named after Hamas founder Ahmad Yassin, and end the day in a youth center named after terrorist Abu Iyad, responsible for killing the Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich. “Do you think it is beautiful?” a male host asks an 11-year old girl on a popular Palestinian TV program. “Shahada is very,...

Paris (AFP) — France’s largest employers’ federation on Monday urged companies to “resist the blackmail” over a product boycott by Arab countries as a backlash widens over Paris’s hardened stance against radical Islam. French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to take the fight to Islamic radicals after the October 16 beheading of a history teacher who had shown cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed to pupils in a class discussion on free speech. But his comments triggered protests in Muslim-majority countries at the weekend, with people burning pictures of Macron in Syria and setting fire to French flags in the Libyan...

As forces mass in Europe, the biggest stumbling block to EuropeÂ’s future strategic independence as well as American grand strategy is once again Germany. North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies Turkey and Greece are embroiled in a dispute over Turkish oil and gas exploration in the Mediterranean, and Greece is backed by the French navy. After the French military conducted training exercises with Greek forces in the region on Thursday, Turkey warned France to retreat. Within a day, three things happened in rapid succession.First, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo signed a treaty to relocate troops out of Germany to...

<p>But it leaves in place the right of legal abortions in cases of rape, incest, and the health of the mother.</p> <p>Apparently, this just isn’t good enough for the pro-abortion crowd that wants abortion on demand anytime and all the time.</p>

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: ISIS was so successful in 2014 in part because President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan of Turkey is a vocal supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood. Any distance ErdoÄŸan has placed between himself and ISIS is attributable to pressure from Russia, the US, and Europe, not to his rejection of the groupÂ’s Islamist ideology. In view of TurkeyÂ’s increasingly divisive and destabilizing influence in the Middle East, the regionÂ’s biggest concern for the West could be President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸanÂ’s burgeoning Islamist tendencies. In order to understand the Turkish role in the threat of ISIS, borne from the Muslim Brotherhood, it...

Police are investigating an attack that caused extensive damage to more than 60 works of art and artifacts displayed at three locations on Berlin's Museum Island and whose motivation is a mystery. Unidentified suspects had splashed an oily liquid around the museums during opening hours on October 3, Carsten Pfohl of Berlin's criminal police told a news conference. The damaged exhibits include Egyptian sarcophagi, stone sculptures and 19th-century paintings held at the Pergamon Museum, the Neues Museum and the Alte Nationalgalerie, according to local media reports that broke the news of the attack on Tuesday night. The public had not...