<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;" align="center">As September 24<sup>th</sup>, the day elections in Germany will take place, quickly approaches&ndash; German Chancellor Angela Merkel is campaigning for her fourth term.  ;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Although she is comfortably ahead in the polls, she continues to receive tremendous criticism for her open door policy that let 1 million migrants in the country in 2015.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On Saturday, protesters attended her campaign speech in the eastern town of Quedlinburg and continued to shout during the entire 30-minutes that she addressed the 1,500 people in the crowd.  ;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">They chanted phrases like &ldquo;Liar, liar&rdquo; and &ldquo;Merkel just go!&rdquo; causing her to deviate from her speech three times.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;I hope you were able to understand some of that even though some of you out there kept on yelling,&rdquo; said Merkel on Saturday. &ldquo;Some believe the problems in Germany can be fixed by screaming &#8211; but I don&rsquo;t think so and the majority of the people here don&rsquo;t think so either. Some people can&rsquo;t do anything else but scream and shout &#8211; but we&rsquo;re not going to let them lead us astray.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Merkel has only appeared in eastern Germany twice during her campaign trail. This is an area with high anti-Merkel sentiment with many being part of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, an anti-immigration party that has gain traction in the last few years.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;Merkel&rsquo;s open-borders stance depressed her approval ratings last year and spurred the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party after a record number of 980,000 asylum seekers, many of them fleeing war in Syria, arrived in Germany in 2015. Critics included U.S. President Donald Trump, who called Merkel&rsquo;s policy a &ldquo;catastrophic mistake&rdquo; in an interview with European media,&rdquo; writes <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bloomberg.</em> ;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Many blame Merkel for the spike in terror attacks in Germany in the last two years, but the chancellor continues to defend her open border refugee policy.  ;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;I would make all of the important decisions of 2015 the same way again,&rdquo; said Merkel in a Welt am Sonntag newspaper interview this weekend.  ;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Although she eventually attempted to stop the bleeding by deporting 215,000 migrants in 2016, she made it clear on Saturday that refugees are still welcome.  ;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;Diversity makes us strong in Germany and that&rsquo;s something we want to maintain,&rdquo; said Merkel. However, she did say that the 2015 influx of migrants will not be repeated.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Could Merkel lose?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;Mrs. Merkel&rsquo;s main rival, the SDP&rsquo;s Martin Schulz is hoping to pull off a ;Jeremy Corbyn ;-style surprise and is borrowing the Labour leader&rsquo;s tactics of mass rallies and campaign events,&rdquo; writes <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mirror.</em> &ldquo;But the bearded Mr. Schulz, a former president of the EU parliament, ;has yet to make a sizeable dent in Mrs. Merkel&rsquo;s poll lead.&rdquo;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong>A</strong><strong>uthor&rsquo;s note: </strong>The elections will be here before we know it. Even though we are seeing substantial pushback to Merkel, we aren&rsquo;t sure that this is enough resistance to beat her. Nonetheless, the damage from her open door policy is already done. Germany now has huge problems.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong>Editor&#8217;s note:</strong> Just to remind you, that is 1 million immigrants added to a population that is only about 83 million to start with, in an area slightly smaller than Montana. It has truly turned into a pressure cooker.</p>
<p> ;</p>