Beware Of Low-Flying Objects

Like Germany’s SPD.

Nahles

Their new boss lady, Andrea Nahles, has brought them down to an altitude of 17 percent – that’s the percentage of the German electorate that is still prepared to vote for them.

But watch it, folks. They’re tricky. I think it’s intentional. How could you sink this low if it wasn’t on purpose? And once they get under the radar like that they can turn up anywhere and start strafing you when you least expect. You know, with new money resdistribution plans or other social justice air warrior maneuvers? Or maybe just crash and burn altogether. Hard to say for sure. Either way it’s only only going to get uglier.

Nach dem RTL/n-tv-Trendbarometer verliert die SPD im Vergleich zur Vorwoche und erreicht nur noch 17 Prozent. Alle anderen Parteien blieben bei ihren Werten. Die Union liegt demnach bei 34 Prozent, die Grünen bei 13, die AfD bei zwölf, die Linken bei zehn und die FDP bei neun Prozent.

Perfect For The Job

As head of a “worker’s” party like Germany’s SPD, I mean: Somebody who has never worked a day in her life.

Nahles

Folks like that know best how to distribute/redistribute other people’s money. I guess this election means that the SPD commrades want to stretch out their party’s long and excruciating terminal illness for as long as they possibly can. Good choice, workers. She is clearly the best man for the job.

Andrea Nahles has become the first woman to lead Germany’s Social Democrats — though by a disappointing margin of votes…

After garnering a meager 66.35 percent of delegate support at a special conference in the western German city of Wiesbaden on Sunday, Andrea Nahles takes over a Social Democratic Party (SPD) in an unprecedented crisis.

Scarcely a year ago, SPD delegates had unanimously elected Martin Schulz, the longtime president of the European Parliament, as party leader and chancellor candidate. The result was a historic national electoral debacle against Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), leaving the SPD deeply divided over policy and personnel.

After initial refusals, party leaders decided to extend the grand coalition with Merkel’s CDU and Bavaria’s Christian Social Union, which allies with the chancellor’s conservatives. Nahles’ job is to remake and re-energize the SPD while ensuring that its cabinet ministers can do their jobs with minimum of interference by fellow Social Democrats.

“Solidarity is one of the main things missing in this globalized, neoliberal turbocharged world.”

Russia To Begin Behaving Better Now

Because, well, Germany’s foreign minister has told them to.

Heiko

Thank goodness. I wish someone would have told them this earlier. These tensions with Russia have been really sucky lately. Germany may not be much when it comes to hands-on action in matters like these but they really take the Kuchen (cake) when it comes to giving good advice.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) on Sunday criticized Russia for a series of activities beyond its borders, blaming it for a cyber attack on his own ministry, and said Moscow must change its ways.

Maas listed a series of what he called problematic actions that also included the lack of progress in implementing a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, a poison gas attack in Britain, support for the Syrian government, and efforts to influence Western elections.

“It is time, I think, to point out that we expect constructive contributions from the Russian side, including on the Syrian conflict. And also that they don’t always simply protect (Syrian President Bashar) al-Assad.”

If We Rename The Street It Never Happened

Berlin is set to rename streets linked to atrocities Germany committed during its 1884-1919 occupation of Namibia.

Streets

Local councillors agreed on new street names for the so-called African Quarter in the north-west of the German capital on Wednesday evening.

The resaoning goes like this, I think: Historical or cultural explanations for events that took place over 100 years ago by people who have absolutely nothing to do with the culture under strict supervision by today’s ultra-moralists cannot even be brought up much less considered as this would be, well, heretical. OUR moral truth is universal and transcends space and time so we, as in you, are responsible for everything everywhere at all times that ever happened, throughout all known dimensions even, except the modern parallel universes we have created here in town and elsewhere and refuse to address much less take responsibility for. So we, as in you, should be ashamed of yourselves already.

“The African Quarter still glorifies colonialism and its crimes,” council members from the Greens, Social Democrats and Left parties say in their joint motion.

Israel

Beautiful German weapon sale of the week.

Israel

Because somebody has to admire them.

The contract will be signed in the coming weeks, German parliament member Fritz Felgentreu, responsible for defense affairs in the German Social Democratic Party, told “Globes.”

The German Ministry of Defense estimates the cost of the agreement, which includes leasing five Heron TP UAVs manufactured by IAI in cooperation with Airbus, at €1 billion over nine years.

German Of The Day: Oligarch

That means oligarch. Take former chancellor Gerhard “Gazprom Gerd” Schroeder, for instance. Please.

Gerd

Sanctions aimed at key individuals can be surprisingly effective, it turns out. They help to undermine internal support for the regime or at least its most unattractive policies.

One oligarch, though, remains overlooked. Arguably he is the most important of all. That’s former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder

Mr. Schroeder has been a one-man Trojan horse against every European Union commitment to curb Russian energy leverage and improve the competitiveness of its gas market. Notice that the alternative was never to shut Russian gas out of Germany. It was simply for Germany, at every step, to stop lending itself to the enhancement of Russia’s energy power, with Mr. Schroeder leading the influence brigades.

Schröders Engagement in Russland und Nähe zu Putin, den er einen Freund nennt, stößt seit Jahren auf Argwohn. Im vergangenen September ließ sich der Altkanzler allen Einwänden zum Trotz zum Aufsichtsratsvorsitzenden des halbstaatlichen russischen Ölkonzerns Rosneft wählen.

German Of The Day: Gruselkabinett

That means chamber of horrors – although cabinet of horrors is also possible here and is definitely more appropriate in this case.

Grusel

Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) on Friday officially unveiled the six members bestowed with a ministerial post in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s new coalition government.

After suffering record losses in the last election — scoring its worst results since World War II — the SPD is vying to renew its fortunes by bringing some fresh, dynamic figures into the cabinet.

Vast majority of German voters think SPD is unfit for government.

We’ll Miss You

Not. And don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Gabriel

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel has been informed that his services will no longer be needed in the next awful German coalition government. They will manage to be awful enough without him.

The reason for this being the replacement of this annoying whiner by a comrade of his who whines even better, or penetranter (more overpoweringly), as the Germans like to say; Heiko Maas. This guy is a natural born wonder-whiner whose whining has even been know to shatter whine glasses. He’s wearing a pair of whine glasses right now, by the way.

So, in other words, he’s the perfect pick to be Germany’s Foreign Minister. Nice work if you can get it, I guess. It’s not like you ever actually have to do anything. Other than a little whining, I mean.

Der bisherige Justiziminister Heiko Maas wird offenbar Außenminister in der nächsten Regierung unter Kanzlerin Merkel.

Enthusiasm?

Where’s the enthusiasm? That’s what Spiegel Online asks regarding Germany’s next coming grand coalition government.

Enthusiasm

I know that’s not a serious question but how could there possibly be any enthusiasm for the forming of a government that the electorate expressly voted out of office just a few months previously? Everybody but Merkel & Co. are depressed about this depressing matter and are going to stay that way until the new GroKo government – that isn’t even in power yet – finally exits the political stage  for good.

Imagine that. You aren’t even in office yet and everybody already hates you. That’s never happened before, right?

With the Social Democrats having approved a new coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel, Germany finally has a government. Despite the breakthrough, however, enthusiasm is in short supply in Berlin.

German Of The Day: Fußvolk

That means foot soldiers, as in rank and file. And special thanks need to go out to the SPD’s Fußvolk today.SPD

Thanks for nothing. You failed. First make a lot of noise as if you will vote down Merkel’s latest grand coalition government plans so you can take your rightful place in the opposition instead (where you belong – your forty years in the desert) and then cave in to your worthless party leadership and give your blessing after all.

Not that anyone has ever taken your bitching and moaning about “showing those folks up there” all that seriously in the first place, nobody without a party membership card will ever believe a word of it again. You had your chance to do something and you blew it. You have the leadership you deserve. Pitiful.

SPD-Mitglieder stimmen zu 66 Prozent für GroKo-Neuauflage.