Category Archives: Helections

Dysfunctional Elections?

February 12, 2023 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology Tags: , , , Leave a comment

Oh brother. The Germans (Berliners) are copying US-Amerika again.

Only they got it all wrong, as usual. They’re actually trying to undue the damage done by rerunning the failed election. They’re actually trying to get an honest and fair result, in other words. Amateurs. They’ll never play in our league. When it comes to Banana Republicism, Americans will continue to lead the world.

Berlin holds court-ordered rerun of chaotic state election – The city of Berlin on Sunday is holding a court-ordered rerun of a chaotic 2021 state election that was marred by severe glitches at many polling stations that led to hours-long lines as some polling places ran out of ballot papers or received ones for the wrong district.

Berliners have long been frustrated by the German capital’s notoriously dysfunctional ways, which have been defying clichés of German efficiency for years and have made the city the laughing stock of the rest of the country.

US-Amerika Isn’t The Only Place In Need Of Foreign Observers To Monitor Elections

February 9, 2023 By in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The Germans have their problems too, the German capital in particular. But in contrast to us Americans, Berliners actually have the courage to them in.

Berlin is peanuts compared to The Banana Republic itself, I know, but its sure got pluck.

‘Dysfunctional’ Berlin holds rerun after election chaos – German capital has been governed by centre-left coalitions for more than two decades.

It’s not every day that foreign observers are needed to monitor an election in Germany, one of the west’s richest and most stable democracies. But then again, Berlin is no ordinary city.

Fourteen officials from the Council of Europe, the continent’s top human rights body, will arrive in the capital this week to observe Sunday’s rerun of its 2021 election, an event so chaotic its results were nullified: Berliners had to queue for hours at polling stations, which ran out of voting papers and ballot boxes. Some stayed open late to cope with the crowds, when broadcasters were already calling the result.

German Blackout Experts Now Giving Blackout Courses

November 13, 2022 By in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

“I’m taking Blackout Basics. Which one did you enroll in?”

The folks who caused the situation in the first place (German voters) are now teaching each other how to avoid the situation they already caused in the first place. Go renewables! Nuclear energy? Nein, Danke!

Growing number of Germans won’t be left in dark with blackout courses – Once purely the stuff of action movie plots, the prospect of the lights going out in Europe’s biggest economy has become a conceivable threat during the current energy crisis.

Looking to be the heroes in a real-life blackout, a growing number of Germans are turning to citizens’ courses to learn how to act if they find themselves plunged into darkness.

“If the electricity goes out then absolutely nothing works any more. And we need to understand what ‘nothing working’ really means,” said Birgitt Eberlin, an instructor at the Workers’ Samaritan Federation (ASB).

“Glitches” Are Just Right-Wing Conspiracy Theories

November 11, 2022 By in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Right? Even in, uh, Germany?

Germany Clears Rerun of Part of 2021 Election After Berlin Glitches – Irregularities in capital’s voting marred national election.

German lawmakers cleared a rerun of last year’s national election in six parliamentary districts in Berlin after irregularities at hundreds of the capital’s polling places triggered official complaints.

German Energy Price Cap Already Taking Effect

October 7, 2022 By in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Whew. Thank goodness the government intervened in time.

German of the day: Energieverbrauch. That means energy consumption. And concerned Germans just can’t seem to consume enough of it these days.

Despite the German government’s calls for savings, energy consumption by citizens in Germany has not fallen. According to the Federal Network Agency, consumption by private households and smaller commercial customers last week was almost ten percent higher than in previous years.

Scam? What Scam? Me?

August 12, 2022 By in Hard Facts, Helections, Hideology, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

How could I have played a role? I don’t remember anything. I know nothing, nothing!

And German state media does its duty and doesn’t know anything either. Scholz is one of the good guys, you see (SPD).

Germany: Pressure grows on Scholz over tax scam ties – Germany’s main opposition party has called on Chancellor Olaf Scholz to explain his role in a large-scale tax evasion scam while he was mayor of Hamburg.

Germany’s main opposition party has called on Chancellor Olaf Scholz to explain his role in a large-scale tax evasion scam while he was mayor of Hamburg.

Scholz has been dogged by questions about meetings he had with private bank M.M. Warburg in 2016 and 2017. Hamburg officials later dropped demands for the bank to repay millions of euros in tax refunds it had wrongly claimed for share trades.

The FDP Decides

October 20, 2021 By in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

It seems pretty clear to me who the next German Finance Minister will be.

Their boss, Christian Linder, will get the job. If he doesn’t, it won’t come to this odd coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP.

Lindner and the FDP stand for low taxes, debt limitation and a hard line towards Germany’s European partners. The climate crisis is to be addressed by private investment and carbon pricing. The Greens, by contrast, have put climate first – and for that reason advocate large-scale investment, lifting Germany’s “debt brake”, and a pro-European policy that continues the steps taken in 2020 towards common, debt-financed investment policy. It is precisely in these policy areas – where the differences between the Greens (and the SPD) and the FDP are greatest – that the finance ministry is critical.

It Can’t Happen Here

October 15, 2021 By in Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Election fraud. We’re not in the Banana Republic of Amerika, after all.

Or can it?

Berlin’s Constitutional Court to review election results – After a messy Election Day that saw ballots moved around the German capital during a marathon, the results are to be reviewed — focusing on two districts.

The OSCE has yet to issue its full report on the election. Roughly one in 10 polling centers — 207 out of 2,257 — had election irregularities. That represents over a hundred more stations than Berlin’s interior minister said in an initial report last week.

“That is a number that should scare and frustrate us all,” Michaelis said previously. She has resigned following the failures.

German Of The Day: Vermasselt

October 11, 2021 By in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, Hurt Feelings Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

That means botched.

Merkel’s botched succession: how Germany’s leader failed to keep her party in power – Longstanding chancellor accused of neglecting CDU and losing support of party’s rightwing.

The CDU stopped being conservative, or rightwing if you prefer, long ago. And it’s all her doing. It’s called the Merkel Method: She takes the wind out of her opponents’ sails by becoming more Green than the Greens and more Red than the Reds (SPD). The downside, of course, is that by doing so over the years she turned the CDU into them.