Germany Gives the OK to Insult Donald Trump

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Germany has finally come to its senses:

Germany’s government says it’s getting out of the business of defending the honor of foreign leaders. Justice Minister Heiko Maas on Wednesday said Germany was abolishing a law requiring the government’s permission to allow the prosecution of anyone deemed to have insulted a foreign head of state, saying it was “outdated and unnecessary.”

The central government will tell you that this is related to a tiff with Turkey, but that was a year ago. For months, nothing happened. Then, five days after Donald Trump is sworn in as president, they suddenly announce that they no longer wish to be the go-between for thin-skinned foreign heads of state who might try to harangue them into allowing prosecutions of folks who have insulted them.

You will never convince me this is just a coincidence.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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