Merkel gets seven minute standing ovation for this:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who just last week was named TIME magazine’s 2015 Person of the Year for her stance on the refugee crisis, received a seven-minute (or nine-minute, according to some reports) standing ovation Monday for a speech at her ruling Christian Democratic Union congress in which she promised to “tangibly reduce” the number of refugees coming into her country. Still, The Independent reported, she said it was Germany’s humanitarian duty to take in war refugees. “We are going to manage this — if there are obstacles to overcome, then we will have to work to overcome them. We are ready to show what we are made of.” Germany has taken in an estimated one million refugees this year. . . .

Another noteworthy theme that turned up in Merkel’s speech was disdain for multiculturalism, according to The Washington Post. “Multiculturalism leads to parallel societies and therefore remains a ‘life lie,’” the chancellor said. She went on to say that Germany may be reaching its limit in terms of accepting more refugees. “The challenge is immense,” she said. “We want and we will reduce the number of refugees noticeably.” . . .

Despite her vow to reduce the number of refugees coming into the country, Merkel still refused to set a ceiling on the number of migrants allowed to enter Germany, or to deploy more controls on the country’s borders “until necessary.” But she acknowledged the enormity of the challenge that mass immigration presents for Germany and called on other European nations to help share the burden. Her plan to reduce refugee numbers focused on Germany’s support for tougher measures on the European Union’s border, specifically the sea between Greece and Turkey. And she still plans for the German government to give billions in aid to help Turkey cope with its refugee population. She also wants measures to speed up the return of migrants who failed to qualify for asylum.

She must be using Stalin’s technique of executing the first person to stop clapping.