Free Republic

Leaked funding documents reveal an effort by George Soros and his foundations to manipulate election laws and process rules ahead of the federal election far more expansively than has been previously reported. The billionaire and convicted felon moved hundreds of millions of dollars into often-secret efforts to change election laws, fuel litigation to attack election integrity measures, push public narratives about voter fraud, and to integrate the political ground game of the left with efforts to scare racial minority groups about voting rights threats. These Soros-funded efforts moved through dozens of 501(c)(3) and (c)(4) charities and involved the active compliance with civil rights groups, government...

The residents of two more Siberian cities have now lost the right to elect their mayor in the latest restriction of direct elections in the country. Kemerovo and Novokuznetsk, two of the largest cities in the Siberian region of Kemerovo, will now have appointed instead of elected mayors, according to new laws signed by the regional governor earlier this week. Regional lawmakers voted in April 2018 to abolish direct mayoral elections in Russia’s fourth-largest city of Yekaterinburg, leading its popular mayor Yevgeny Roizman to resign in protest. Other major cities that have abolished elections in recent years include Petrozavodsk, Novgorod...

The nation's top state election officials say they'll keep fighting a Department of Homeland Security order that designates state and local election systems as "critical infrastructure," and aren't happy with the message they got this week that the designation will remain. For the moment, that fight means lobbying congressional delegations to use whatever power is at their disposal to make DHS back off. Barring that, a separation of powers lawsuit may be their last option, but it's not clear yet if any state or coalition of states is willing to take that step just yet. Week Twenty-Two of the Trump...

After the German Interior Minister put forth a bold plan on Tuesday to centralize the country’s security apparatus, conservative leaders at the state level have hit back. Bavarian Minister-President Horst Seehofer on Wednesday categorically rejected Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière’s plan to increase federal powers in domestic security. Germany’s domestic intelligence services are currently decentralized, divided between the federal government and the 16 individual state governments. But de Maizière wants to move the states’ powers to Berlin under the federal BfV intelligence service. […] Hesse interior minister Peter Beuth, CDU, called the reform plans “nonsense” and said such swift moves...

Germany’s federal interior minister has presented “guidelines for a strong state in difficult times.” Some aspects already exist; others are doomed to fail in the face of constitutional reality. […] [Thomas] De Maizière envisions turning over protection of the constitution entirely to the federal government. That would require the dissolution of the agency’s 16 state offices. His rationale: No one intent upon attacking the constitution is interested in destroying governmental order “in one state alone.” Though this sounds plausible as a concept, it could turn out to be too complicated to be put into practice. Domestic security services are charged...

The co-chairman of a reform panel formed after the Ferguson police shooting of Michael Brown said Monday that the group’s report calling for police departments and municipal courts to be merged and other changes “reveals uncomfortable truths about this region we call home.” Rich McClure and other Ferguson Commission members acknowledge in their 198-page report that the panel has no power to enact any of the proposals. Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon said he backs the recommendations and during a news conference declared: “I commit to you today that these tireless efforts will not be in vain.” “Together we will lead...

President Obama discussed initiatives he's put in place to change the tense dynamic between "many communities of color" and the police on the one year anniversary of teenager Michael Brown's death in Ferguson, Mo. "I convened a task force on community policing to find commonsense steps that can help us drive down crime and build up trust and cooperation between communities and police, who put their lives on the line every single day to help keep us safe. And I've met personally with rank and file officers to hear their ideas," said Obama in his weekly address. Obama said that...

The European Union’s executive has unveiled a vast plan to boost coordination between the EU’s 28 national energy markets to wean Europe off unstable Russian gas supplies and provide cheaper energy for consumers. European Commission Vice President Maroš Šefčovič on Wednesday called it “undoubtedly the most ambitious energy project” since the inception of the EU over half a century ago. He believes that improving links across borders in Europe’s energy grid could save businesses and consumers up to €40 billion ($45.4 billion) a year. A more energy-independent Europe will also increase the EU’s political options in eastern Europe. […] “Our...

Florida's Lee County school board has rescinded its vote to opt-out of the state's standardized testing. At a meeting Tuesday morning, the board voted 3-2 in favor of resuming testing....

One of the standard arguments about Britain’s membership of the European Union is that it’s vital that we stay in because so much of our trade is with other European Union countries. Implicit in this is the claim that this is a result of our being in the EU. The dropping of trade restrictions resulting from the Single Market rules for example. The problem with this argument is that it depends upon an empirical claim: that Britain’s trade with the European Union countries has increased since the foundation of that Single Market. And it turns out that that doesn’t seem...

Europe is facing its largest human rights crisis in over two decades, according to the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe (CoE). The human rights watchdog, in a report published on Wednesday (16), says corruption, human trafficking, racism and discrimination persist across Europe. […] CoE secretary general Thorbjørn Jagland—in a statement entitled “Europe in biggest human rights crisis since Cold War”—said the lack of democratic checks and balances, free media and an independent judiciary is the cause of widespread corruption and misuse of power. He is calling for a “new pan-European security agenda” to help stem the abuse. …

Kiev: Crimea's rebel leader urged Russians across Ukraine on Sunday to rise up against Kiev's rule and welcome Kremlin forces whose unrelenting march against his flashpoint peninsula has defied Western outrage. The call came amid growing anxiety among Kiev's Western-backed rulers that Russian President Vladimir Putin — flushed with expansionist fervour — will imminently order an all-out attack on his ex-Soviet neighbour after being hit by only limited EU and US sanctions for taking the Black Sea cape. "The aim of Putin is not Crimea but all of Ukraine," Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council chief Andriy Parubiy told a...

For decades, surgeons have traveled to far-off hospitals to remove organs from brain-dead donors and then rushed back to transplant them. Now an experiment in the Midwest suggests there may be a better way: Bring the donors to the doctors instead. A study out Tuesday reports on liver transplants from the nation’s first free-standing organ retrieval center. Nearly all organ donors now are transported to Mid-America Transplant Services in St. Louis from a region including parts of Missouri, Illinois and Arkansas. Removing organs at this central location near the four hospitals that do transplants saves money, the study found. The...

PRINCETON, NJ -- Six in 10 Americans (60%) believe the federal government has too much power, one percentage point above the previous high recorded in September 2010. At least half of Americans since 2005 have said the government has too much power. Thirty-two percent now say the government has the right amount of power. Few say it has too little power.

At the beginning of her third term, Merkel has more power in Germany and Europe than any chancellor before her. There hasn’t been such a strong majority behind a government in Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag, since the first grand coalition half a century ago. In the midst of the European crisis, Germany has become the undisputed dominant power in Europe. The grand coalition will hand Merkel a majority she could use to shape Germany and Europe and address major issues, including constitutional reforms in Germany and the reform of European Union institutions. … (O)fficials at the Chancellery are forging plans...

As more key powers are transferred to Brussels, it poses an existential question for central governments. … “In my opinion, national central governments will become less important and will lose more power. They will become more and more impotent,” says Franz Schausberger, founder of the Austria-based Institute of the Regions of Europe.To compensate, he notes, “regions have to become stronger, so that the citizens can strengthen their identity and participate in regional and local democracy.” …

British people will be branded EU citizens from “cradle to grave” as the European Union introduces its own birth, marriage and death certificates, ministers have warned. Eric Pickles, the local government secretary, fears that the European Union flag could replace the royal crest on all the official documents within three years under EU regulations. The government says it is powerless to stop the forms from being rolled out across the country because they are being introduced under the Lisbon treaty. … The European Union insists the documents are optional, but Mr. Pickles believes that “Euro creep” means they will become...

Frustrated by the lack of jobs and middle-class progress? Dispirited by the fading American Dream? Don't blame capitalism. Blame regulation and politicians who push it. Some people, it seems, live to rail against free markets and free enterprise, holding them responsible for flat wages, lack of opportunity, income gaps, middle-class stagnation, poverty and economic listlessness. They're convinced private greed holds back the government's ability to improve conditions. But it's the government that's done the most damage to economic growth, new research shows. America is now more of a regulatory state than a haven of free enterprise — a development that...

The EU financial crisis has prompted centralization of economic and budgetary powers in Brussels, while national parliaments struggle to fulfill their role as democratic watchdogs. The issue will be highlighted on Wednesday (29 May) when the European Commission publishes detailed budget recommendations for member states, potentially touching on sensitive areas such as wage-setting, pension age or social spending.“I am worried about the degree of influence of the country-specific recommendations,” said Eva Kjer Hansen, head of the Europe committee in the Danish parliament. …

A new ideas paper on progress towards further EU integration highlights the shifting power sands for national parliaments, as the European Parliament is set to become the principal democratic guardian of a future EU. The paper—put together by EU council president Herman Van Rompuy and published Thursday (6 December)—lays out a loose time framework for achieving “genuine economic and monetary union.” In a section entitled democratic legitimacy and accountability—the section itself is an acknowledgement of the how the issue has moved up the political agenda—the paper notes that the one of “guiding principles” is that democratic control should happen at...