Mutti Wants More Multi

You must take on more responsibility in the coming year, my fellow Germans. For all of the mistakes I have made in the past, I mean.

Merkel

And these have been multiple mistakes, although we never openly discuss them here. No one knows why that is but that’s what we Germans do. Or don’t do. Anyway, that is why, for 2019, I expect you to multiply your efforts in becoming more multicultural, multireligious, multinational, multilingual and multidisciplined in your efforts to clean up the multifarious mess that my bat shit crazy good intentions have brought raining down upon this country.

I, for my part, have already contributed a great deal to the multi-movement by making Germany a much more multiparty place to live (see AfD). At the expense of my own party, I know, but still. And in the coming year I will concentrate much more on multilateralism. Multilateralism is very important on the international stage for us because, as you know, we Germans are notoriously risk-averse and never do anything on our own internationally unless it has to do with multiplying our profits. Take defense, for example. Please. Multilateralism allows us to shirk our international responsibilities while simultaneously allowing us to vilify those who are actually defending us. It’s a win-win situation for all. For all Germans everywhere. But that’s just one small example. It’s time to press on. The Sekt corks are already popping. 2019 is calling.

Stay multivated, my fellow Germans, and have a multiplicitous New Year!

“In our own interest, we must take on more responsibility.”

But Then Who’s Going To Protect Us?

German ISAF (I Saw Americans Fighting) are already packing their bags in Afghanistan.

ISAF

President Donald Trump’s mooted decision to pull half the US troops out of Afghanistan could mean that the German military follows suit, according to a former head of the Bundeswehr.

“If the United States reduces itself to a small contingent in Afghanistan there’s no reason for us to continue the mission anymore,” retired General Harald Kujat, inspector general of the German military between 2000 and 2002, told the Tagesspiegel newspaper on Thursday.

He added that it was “out of the question” to maintain a military presence in Afghanistan if the protection and support of German troops could not be guaranteed, though he said he expected other NATO members, such as the UK, to increase their contribution to make up for any US withdrawal.

I mean, what on earth do the Americans expect the German army to do? Protect themselves? Like, with firearms or something?

The Money Was Real, Though

Fake news reporters may fake their news like there’s no tomorrow but they rarely want anything to do with fake money.

Fake

Der Spiegel said Sunday it would file a criminal complaint against a disgraced reporter after it emerged he may have embezzled donations intended for Syrian street children.

Claas Relotius, 33, resigned this month after admitting to making up stories and inventing protagonists in more than a dozen articles in the magazine’s print and online editions.

Spiegel said it now had information that Relotius allegedly launched a campaign for readers to give money to help subjects of an article he wrote but that the bank details he gave directed the funds to his own account.

Spiegel said concerned readers had in recent days reported Relotius’ call for donations purportedly for orphaned Syrian children living on the streets of Turkey.

“Der Spiegel will give all the information it collects to public prosecutors as part of a criminal complaint.”

PS: And on that happy note, Merry Christmas!

Santa

Institutional Bias?

At Der Spiegel? At CNN? And systematically practiced by practically everybody else out there working in the media’s “mediation” machine?

CNN

No way. Or… Way? Wow. Who would have thought that possible?

The US government has waded into the scandal of the German journalist for Der Spiegel magazine who faked stories on a grand scale over years, calling it proof of “institutional bias” in the media against America.

In a scathing letter to the magazine’s editors, Richard Grenell, US ambassador to Germany, claims the journalism of Claas Relotius, who resigned from the German news magazine last week, was symptomatic of anti-American bias across the mainstream media. “It is clear that we were the victims of a campaign of institutional bias,” Grenell wrote to Der Spiegel, in a letter also seen by the daily newspaper Bild. He said he was aghast at the way “anti-American coverage” had been facilitated by the magazine.

“We are aware that the Relotius case makes the fight against fake news that much more difficult. For everyone. For for other media outlets that are on our side and for citizens and politicians who are interested in an accurate portrayal of reality.”

German Fake News Scandal Reaches Fergus Falls, Minnesota

“Reality is in the business of killing off fiction.”

Fake News

“In 7,300 words he really only got our town’s population and average annual temperature correct, and a few other basic things, like the names of businesses and public figures, things that a child could figure out in a Google search. The rest is uninhibited fiction (even as sloppy as citing an incorrect figure of citywide 70.4% electoral support for Trump, when the actual number was 62.6%), which begs the question of why Der Spiegel even invested in Relotius’ three week trip to the U.S., whether they should demand their money back from him, and what kind of institutional breakdown led to the supposedly world-class Der Spiegel fact-checking team completely dropping the ball on this one.”

If It’s Not In Der Spiegel, It Didn’t Happen

Unfortunately, that’s also the case even when it is in Der Spiegel.

Spiegel

And here y’all thought that fake news was fake.

Award-winning journalist Claas Relotius wrote fake news, German magazine Der Spiegel says.

An award-winning journalist who worked for Der Spiegel, one of Germany’s leading news outlets, has left the weekly magazine after evidence emerged that he committed journalistic fraud “on a grand scale” over a number of years, the publication said Wednesday…

Spiegel’s revelations echoed past instances of journalistic fraud by reporters elsewhere, including Jayson Blair of The New York Times, Christopher Newton of The Associated Press and Janet Cooke, whose 1980 piece about a child addicted to heroin won The Washington Post writer a Pulitzer Prize before it was exposed as untrue.

Er hat nach Meinung der Jury des Deutschen Reporterpreises 2018 wieder die beste Reportage des Jahres geschrieben, über einen syrischen Jungen diesmal, der im Glauben lebt, durch einen Kinderstreich den Bürgerkrieg im Land mit ausgelöst zu haben. Die Juroren würdigen einen Text “von beispielloser Leichtigkeit, Dichte und Relevanz, der nie offenlässt, auf welchen Quellen er basiert.”

German Of The Day: Weihnachten

That means Christmas. You know, like the word for Christmas that the German Integrationsbeauftragte (Integration Commissioner) purposely left off of her official Christmas card greeting this year?

Weihnachten

“No matter what you believe in…” She writes, “We wish you a peaceful holiday season and a good start in the coming year.” But no mention of the word Christmas. You know, for like, I dunno, Christians?

You certainly couldn’t call Weihnachten a dirty four-letter word. It’s way bigger than that. But it’s sure dirty enough because in the Germany of 2018 it’s the kind of word you do not to want to put into your mouth, much less into writing, during the Christmas, I mean holiday season. At least not when you’re the Integration Commissioner here.

But wait. Shouldn’t that be one of the first words somebody interested in integration in Germany would want to use?

“Es ist bedauerlich, dass falsch verstandene Toleranz augenscheinlich dazu führt, dass Weihnachten, das Fest der Liebe, unsichtbar wird.”

Thought Crime Doesn’t Pay

Not even if you’ve been a member of the SPD for forty-five years, Thilo.

Sarrazin

The SPD party leadership wants to exclude author and former Berlin Finance Minister Thilo Sarrazin from the party. Again. For the third time.

His thought crime? He is critical of Islam and the islamizing of Germany. I know, right? In this day and age? But worse still, he has been critical of this process for decades, not just the past few years. And, worst of all, he refuses to go away.

From an earlier post: To sum it up his latest book (Hostile Takeover) Sarrazin maintains: Islam is a backward religion incapable of reform, inherently violent (the step from Muslim believer to Islamist terrorist being merely one of degree), intolerant and xenophobic and that the Muslims in Germany are openly attempting to out-populate the Germans, which of course isn’t terribly hard to do.

So… Which part of that is getting everybody over at the SPD all upset about? I thought this was mainstream thinking.

“Ich habe keine SPD-Grundsätze verletzt.”

PS: Speaking of thought crime, Berlin’s Waldorf School just turned down a child because his father is in the AfD.

Warn?

Warn? Sure. But nothing will change.

Warn

German Conservatives Warn on Russian Pipeline Project – Contenders for Angela Merkel’s seat as head of the CDU question controversial project amid mounting Kremlin aggression.

An official close to Ms. Merkel said the German government wouldn’t have any legal means of stopping the pipeline as authorities have already issued permits and construction was under way.

How convenient.

“Many people inside Germany are coming to realize what most people outside of Germany already know: It is unwise to give Russia more influence over Europe’s energy security,”

Trump Still Really Evil But…

German Carmakers Jump on Potential U.S.-China Tariff Truce. This is how Germany works, folks.

BMW

BMW AG rallied the most in more than three years after U.S. President Donald Trump said China had agreed to remove painful tariffs on imported American-made cars shipped to the world’s biggest automotive market. Daimler AG and Volkswagen AG also rose sharply.

BMW and Daimler, which export sport utility vehicles from U.S. plants to China, stand to be the biggest gainers from a potential reduction of tariffs. Six of the ten best-selling U.S. auto imports to China are made by the two German luxury auto manufacturers.

Autobosse treffen Trump Kurse von BMW, VW und Daimler schnellen in die Höhe.