German immigration motion passes, breaking taboo on cooperation with AfD – Narrow passage of controversial CDU-CSU motion ends longstanding boycott on cooperating with far-right party.
The German parliament has narrowly passed a motion urging tough restrictions on immigration that was highly controversial because it was backed by the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party.
The motion was brought by the conservative opposition CDU-CSU and backed by, among others, the AfD, breaking a longstanding taboo on cooperation with the anti-immigration party.
Despite Scholz’s criticism (German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, SPD): majority of SPD voters support Merz’s asylum ban, according to poll – Scholz had protested vehemently against the CDU’s push for a turnaround on migration. A survey now shows that 66% of Germans support Merz – as do the majority of SPD voters.
In Germany. When it comes to climate change, I mean.
Endlich (finally).
Germany’s likely next chancellor vows to put economy before climate – Conservative chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz railed against the climate policies of the left-leaning parties he’ll likely have to govern with.
Germany’s economic policies have been “almost exclusively geared toward climate protection” during the reign of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Merz said during a campaign speech in the western industrial city of Bochum on Monday. “I want to say it clearly as I mean it: We will and we must change that.”
That means the reversal of perpetrator and victim.
As in: “Just seeking an arrest warrant against Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Hamas leader Sinwar at the same time is already an absurd reversal of perpetrator and victim.”
Would Germany arrest Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if the International Criminal Court issues an arrest warrant?
Yes, the Scholz government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit on Wednesday. CDU leader Friedrich Merz is clearly critical of this.
When asked whether Germany would comply with a decision by the court, the Scholz spokesperson said only briefly: “Of course, we comply with the law.”
Germany’s CDU questions Islam’s place in society – Muslims, migration, and nuclear energy all get fresh focus in a new CDU manifesto. The draft has already drawn widespread criticism.
The new color scheme a few months back was only a cosmetic step. Now, Germany’s center-right Christian Democrats are going under the hood. For the first time since 2007, the party that ruled Germany for most of the republic’s young history has revamped its party program.
Its leaders hope this is their ticket to returning to power, which they lost in 2021. In establishing what the CDU now stands for, the draft reflects ideological differences at the very top. Chairman Friedrich Merz needed three attempts to become party leader, rebuffed by a skeptical Angela Merkel when she was still chancellor and a powerful force in the party. With her gone and Merz in charge since early last year, he is seeking a different path…
Gone are the days of recognizing that “Islam now belongs to Germany, too” as the CDU’s Christian Wulff said when he served as Germany’s president during an early Merkel government. The new draft manifesto adds a key caveat: Muslims belong to Germany so long as they “share our values.”
We spell it gross. That means big. Not gross. You know, our gross, as in “a gross exaggeration?”
That’s what’s calling Friedrich Merz “Germany’s Donald Trump” certainly is. A “hardline conservative” in Germany is a liberal light in US-Amerika.
But having said that, when I read from our friends over at Politico about “A combative old white man who speaks of gays and pedophiles in the same breath, dismisses gender debates as a waste of time and who can’t stand Angela Merkel could hardly be more out of step with the zeitgeist,” I ask myself, what’s not to like about this guy?
And there might be one in the making for Mini-Merkel herself (Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer or AKK). Then again, there might not be one in the making either. You never know for sure. But you can always hope, right?
Angela Merkel’s party in a shambles as new leader flounders – Christian Democrats fail to convince both the left and the right as some consider ousting successor…
Friedrich Merz, the conservative poster boy defeated by AKK in last year’s leadership race, said Merkel’s lack of direction was smothering Germany “like a carpet of fog.”
CDU-Parteitag in Leipzig – Riskiert Friedrich Merz den Putsch?
That means abysmal, godawful, extremely bad, mega-bad and really sucky.
And after the CDU’s latest election disaster in Thuringia, Angela Merkel/Mini-Merkel adversary Friedrich Merz has grown the cojones (that’s Spanish so you’ll have to look that up somewhere else) needed to call Angela Merkel and her team’s “leadership” skills just that. Which, of course, they are. Somebody has to. Not that it’s going to make a difference or anything. But somebody has to.
German, European stability prospects unclear after Thuringia election – The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) led by Björn Höcke — whose local political faction is being investigated for extremism — doubled its vote share to place second with 23%. The CDU placed third with 22%, followed by the SPD with 8%. The environmentalist Greens and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) both finished with about 5% of the vote, the minimum needed to reenter the regional parliament.
„Das gesamte Erscheinungsbild der deutschen Bundesregierung ist einfach grottenschlecht.”
Conspiracy theory of the week: The CDU sabotaged Friedrich Merz’s chances for winning the election for party chairman against Mini-Merkel on Friday by turning down his microphone during his speech. I believe it. Of course, I also believe that interdimensional shapeshifting lizards are calling all the shots here on Planet Earth from a secret bunker complex somewhere under the polar ice cap, thus causing the ice there to melt. But still.
Wirre Gerüchte: Falsches Spiel mit Merz? CDU soll sein Mikro absichtlich gedimmt haben.
Maybe this Friedrich Merz has a chance of becoming head of the Christian Democrats (CDU) this Friday after all. Wolfgang Schäuble, the seventy-six-year-old CDU Urgestein (bedrock) who should have/would have been chancellor, is supporting Merz wholeheartedly. He is doing this out of conviction, of course, but he also has an ax to grind with Empress Merkel Herself (who wants Mini-Merkel to take over for her – and can’t stand Merz). Like Helmut Kohl before her, her rise to power came with a major political setback for Schäuble. Now it’s payback time. Better late than never.
“Of course! We are one big, happy fleet! Ah, Kirk, my old friend, do you know the Klingon proverb that tells us revenge is a dish that is best served cold?”
Weil er Kanzler nicht werden konnte, will er jetzt, am Ende eines schier unglaublichen Berufslebens, wenigstens Kanzlermacher sein. Er nutzt, 76-jährig, seine wohl letzte Gelegenheit, auf die Geschichte der CDU und der Bundesrepublik entscheidenden Einfluss zu nehmen – und damit zugleich für die politische Zurücksetzung, die er erst von Kohl und dann von Merkel erfahren hat, Genugtuung zu finden.
Observing Hermann 