Free Republic

Over the past week, 20 polling stations set up in central Berlin invited non-German citizens to cast a symbolic general election vote. Why is the right to vote important for these residents? The Local found out. “I find it bad that I’m not able to vote,” Ania Seroka explained after she slipped her symbolic ballot into the box with her young son by her side. In spite of having lived in Germany for ten years, Polish citizen Ania Seroka will not have a say in the country’s federal election less than a week away. But the social worker considers her...

Taking in refugees causes terror. Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism. Last decade, Ronald and Penelope Jones were being feted for their work as foster parents. Now their suburban Surrey home was raided in an investigation into the train bombing in London. The Joneses had won praise for fostering hundreds of children. But their growing interest in taking in refugees from Muslim countries turned their pleasant home with its wooden fences and green backyard into a ticking time bomb. And that bomb...

“This is a clear threat to public higher education.” A faculty letter addressed to the UC Berkeley campus and the Berkeley community at large is calling for a complete boycott of classes and campus activities during the upcoming “Free Speech Week," which will feature conservative speakers whose very names inspire college students to seek safe spaces and therapy. The Berkeley paper called The Daily Californian reports that the letter was co-written by seven faculty members, including Michael Cohen, a campus associate teaching professor of African American studies. The letter urges fellow faculty members to take three steps: cancel classes and...

Another disturbing new trend in Europe. A woman described as having “deep psychological problems” is in police custody after allegedly spraying four American tourists with acid at the Gare de Marseille-Saint-Charles station on Sunday morning. She was reported to have used a cleaning substance containing hydrochloric acid.   “Two American women aged 20 were hit in the face, while the other two were sprayed in the legs, and were mainly suffering from shock,’ said a source close to the case. “The two with facial injuries were taken to hospital, while the others were treated at the scene. They were also aged 20 or...

While the United States and NATO remains focused on defeating Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, al Qaeda in Syria is accumulating strength and territory at an alarming pace and may eventually pose the most daunting counterterrorism challenge that the U.S and west has ever faced. Al-Qaeda has reportedly benefited from the U.S.-led coalition’s single-minded focus against ISIS and exploited the opposition against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to grow stronger.

Four American women traveling in southern France were attacked with acid Sunday at a train station in Marseilles, a police spokeswoman said. All four of the women were taken to a hospital for burn treatment, though two were mostly uninjured, according to the New York Times. One of the women had been hit in the eye with the substance and could not see well, TV station France 3 reported. All four of the Americans were university students in their early 20s studying abroad. A statement from Boston College identified them as Courtney Siverling, Charlotte Kaufman and Michelle Krug — students...

St. Louis activists who were protesting the acquittal of Jason Stockley are crying about being abused by the police after they blocked a police transport van and then started shoving police officers, and that’s their side of the story (videos below.) The Associated Press reports that around 2:40 PM on Friday, a group of the protesters stood in front of a police transport bus full of officers in riot gear, blocking it from moving. The bus tried to back up, but then a group stood behind the bus, blocking them in. The group then started throwing objects at the bus....

Police arrested an 18-year-old man Saturday morning in the port area of Dover in connection with an attack a day earlier on a train at a London Underground station, London's Metropolitan Police said. It was a "significant arrest" as the investigation continues, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu, the senior national coordinator for counterterrorism policing, said in a statement. "This arrest will lead to more activity from our officers. For strong investigative reasons, we will not give any more details on the man we arrested at this stage," he said. ISIS has claimed involvement in the train blast but has offered...

Full title............................'Refugee foster boy', 18, arrested at Dover port over Parsons Green bucket bomb 'was first held by police two weeks ago but freed' as detectives raid home of the caring pensioner couple who took him in........................The suspected Parsons Green bomber was a 'problematic foster child' who was allegedly arrested two weeks ago near to where the attack took place before being freed. Police are searching a house in Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey, after the 18-year-old was detained in the 'port area' of Dover earlier today while apparently attempting to leave the country. The home raided by police in connection with the...

BERLIN — Americans can be forgiven for thinking Germany has already successfully thwarted Alternative for Germany (AfD), the Deutsch version of the right-wing populist movements pounding on the gates of Europe. When the overtly racist AfD’s numbers sank in the polls in March, observers across the West felt relieved to know that the European Union’s backbone and strongest advocate would not fall to the far right. Germans, however, feel little such relief. In fact, many are worried sick about the virtual certainty of a far-right party’s entrance to Parliament. That’s because even a small AfD presence in the Bundestag could...

snip Last week, at the urging of Russia, the Americans finally called off aerial surveillance. “The deal has been completed,” said a “commander in the [pro-Assad] military alliance” — probably a Hezbollah source — to Reuters. The commanders said that, along the new route, ISIS freed a Hezbollah prisoner. Earlier this week, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah — highlighting the role of his forces in propping up the Assad regime and downplaying that of the regime’s military — declared “victory” in the 79-month Syrian conflict.

President Donald Trump on Friday said he wished his ban on travelers entering the U.S. was stronger, just hours after more than 20 people were injured in an attack on a London subway train that British police were treating as a terrorist incident. "Another attack in London by a loser terrorist. These are sick and demented people who were in the sights of Scotland Yard. Must be proactive!" Trump tweeted in the first of four posts about the incident.

A groundbreaking report out of the UK has found an "unambiguous" association between anti-Israel and anti-Semitic views. Of people who are strongly anti-Israel, 74 percent also hold at least one anti-Semitic attitude, found the report, "Anti-Semitism in contemporary Great Britain: A study of attitudes towards Jews and Israel." Though the link between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism has been frequently reported on by the media, the joint Institute for Jewish Policy Research and Community Security Trust study claims to be the first "robust empirical documentation of the association between these two attitudes in Britain." Over half the general British population hold at...

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the London terror attack, according to reports. The group’s official Amaq news agency has announced that a “detachment” was behind Friday’s explosion on a packed subway train. “The bombing of the IED in the London tube was carried out by a unit affiliated to the Islamic State,” the agency said, according to the Independent. The group cited security sources, though terror analysts warned that the claim could be a ruse.

The UK terror threat level has been raised from severe to critical, the highest possible level, meaning an attack is “expected imminently”. The Prime Minister announced the threat level had been raised after the Parsons Green tube bomb attack. It means that troops will patrol the streets and security will also be stepped up at major public events and terrorist targets such as railway stations and airports.

A Christian man in Pakistan was sentenced to death for blasphemy after he sent a WhatsApp message to a friend that insulted Islam, his lawyer said on Friday. His trial continued for more than a year at the Gujrat Jail, about 200 kilometres from the provincial capital Lahore. Lahore -- A Christian man in Pakistan was sentenced to death for blasphemy after he sent a WhatsApp message to a friend that insulted Islam, his lawyer said on Friday. Nadeem James Masih was charged in July after his friend Yasir Bashir told the police that he sent him a poem on...

The French armed forces say a man armed with a knife was arrested Friday after attacking soldiers patrolling outside the Chatelet metro station in Paris. No one was injured.......

Fourteen years after the first insurgents emerged in Iraq in 2003, the US may have found a model that works in Iraq. Speaking to US soldiers in Iraq always comes with its share of difficulties. Crackling voices and disrupted connections mar the conversation. Lt.-Col. James Downing of the US 82nd Airborne Division is an adviser to Iraq’s 15th Infantry Division. Last month the division helped liberate Tal Afar from Islamic State and is now preparing for new operations. Iraq is in its third year of war with the extremists and American officers like Downing are playing a key role in...

Imagine if Watergate had been about the White House spying on Democrats for the KGB. Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism. After months of denials, the pretext for Susan Rice’s eavesdropping on Trump officials has finally been made public. It had been widely known that Obama’s former National Security Adviser had contrived to unmask the names of top Trump officials who had been spied on by the administration. And the same media that still treats Watergate as the Great American Scandal had...

Another secret server expands the IT intrigue. Back in July, when House Democrats’ mysterious IT man Imran Awan attempted to flee the country, authorities arrested him at Dulles airport on charges of bank fraud. For Andrew McCarthy, who prosecuted the “Blind Sheik” Omar Abdel-Rahman, “this appears to be a real conspiracy, aimed at undermining American national security.” Turns out, McCarthy was on to something. “A secret server is behind law enforcement’s decision to ban a former IT aide to Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz from the House network,” reports Luke Rosiak in the Daily Caller. Law enforcement has indicted Awan,...