Don’t leave Europe out of this…

But please keep doing whatever you’re doing by keeping Europe out of this.

German Chancellor Merz Backs Trump Peace Push, Calls For Trilateral Meeting With Putin – German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has backed Donald Trump’s push for a peace deal with Ukraine, saying a swift settlement could outweigh a ceasefire. In interviews, Merz revealed Trump pledged U.S. security guarantees for Kyiv and urged a trilateral summit with Putin, Zelensky, and Europe’s involvement. While EU leaders push for a role, Washington remains the decisive force, with Kremlin aides cautious and U.S. allies pressing Europe to step up.

German of the day: Größenwahn

That means megalomania or having delusions of grandeur.

Also see Lachnummer. That means being a joke or a laughing stock.

Annalena Baerbock: Russia wanted to prevent me from becoming chancellor – German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock wants to thwart the US Gaza plans. Talks with partners are underway, she said on “Maischberger” – and emphasized her claim to power within the Greens.

German of the day: “Timing ist alles”

That means timing is everything.

Germany’s trade surplus with US reaches new record – Germany’s trade surplus with the United States reached a record level, data from the statistics office showed, as countries wait to learn how US President Donald Trump will impose tariffs on imported goods.

Germany’s trade surplus with the U.S. expanded to €70 billion (HK$563.1 billion) in 2024, well above the previous record of €63.3 billion reported for the full year 2023.

“It would be hard to imagine worse timing,” said Holger Goerg, from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Trump substantially raised tariffs on steel and aluminum imports on Monday to a flat 25 percent “without exceptions or exemptions.”

Germany gets off to a great start with Trump 2.0

Its ambassador just caused “maximum disruption” – for Germany.

Where would Germany be without professional diplomats?

German ambassador warns of Trump plan to redefine constitutional order, document shows – Germany’s ambassador to the United States has warned that the incoming Trump administration will rob U.S. law enforcement and the media of their independence and hand big tech companies “co-governing power”, according to a confidential document seen by Reuters.

The briefing document, dated Jan. 14 and signed by Ambassador Andreas Michaelis, describes Donald Trump’s agenda for his second White House term as one of “maximum disruption” that will bring about “a redefinition of the constitutional order – maximum concentration of power with the president at the expense of Congress and the federal states.”

“Basic democratic principles and checks and balances will be largely undermined, the legislature, law enforcement and media will be robbed of their independence and misused as a political arm, Big Tech will be given co-governing power,” it says.

Those were the days…

When we could smirk our smirk with impunity.

But then the real world happened. Again.

Germany Should Have Listened to Trump – He was right about Berlin’s self-defense and risky energy dependence on Russia.

The lower house of Germany’s Parliament voted to legalize the recreational use of cannabis last week. It was a timely move. Germany’s leadership class is going to need all the mellow it can find in a world that isn’t going Germany’s way.

The Germans Can’t Talk About Biden

Even they can see what’s happening in US-Amerika right now and are in the deepest, strategic denial. So they gladly talk about (as in down) Trump instead. Or “Trump’s America.” That Evergreen (German for perennial hit) is always a guaranteed feel-good.

A Road Trip through Trump’s America – Former U.S. President Donald Trump is seeking another term in the White House. A trip through Republican-controlled states reveals just how radically America has already changed. Can the country survive a second Trump tenure?

Is America on the verge of a split? Or, even worse, a civil war? The question may sound rather hysterical, but the longer you travel through the country, the more pressing it becomes…

“We Were All Wrong”

That’s right. All you Germans were.

‘We were all wrong’: how Germany got hooked on Russian energy – Germany has been forced to admit it was a terrible mistake to become so dependent on Russian oil and gas. So why did it happen?

Why? That’s easy. Because Germans always want an Extrawurst (an extra sausage, as in special treatment). Well, they’re sure getting special treatment these days.

When Putin invaded Ukraine in February, Germany faced a particular problem. Its rejection of nuclear power and its transition away from coal meant that Germany had very few alternatives to Russian gas. Berlin has been forced to accept that it was a cataclysmic error to have made itself so dependent on Russian energy – whatever the motives behind it. The foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, says Germany failed to listen to the warnings from countries that had once suffered under Russia’s occupation, such as Poland and the Baltic states.

And then, of course, there were the warnings from EVIL US-Trump-Amerika itself. Those just had to be ignored. Well, wake up and smell the Kaffee is all I can say now.

Are All American Celebrities Experts On Nazi Germany?

No wonder they’re all so, I dunno, celebrated or something.

Celebrities

Linda Ronstadt sees ‘great parallels’ between Hitler’s Germany and Trump’s America – In a recent interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, the Grammy-award winning singer said she sees “great parallels” between pre-Nazi Germany and now.

“The intelligentsia of Berlin and the literati and all the artists were just busy doing their thing. Hitler rose to power. There were a lot of chances to stop him, and they didn’t speak out… By the time he got established, he put his own people in place and stacked the courts and did what he had to do to consolidate his power…”

Hitler “stacked the courts.” Hilarious. People who say such things out themselves as not knowing the slightest thing about Nazi Germany. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, of course, but they really out to consider keeping their ignorance to themselves.

Der Spiegel Analyzes The “Kavanaugh Disaster”

As only Der Spiegel can. And oddly, they almost got it right.

Kavanaugh

For one thing, they were honest enough to admit that it was a disaster – for them, of course – because “the President and the Republicans achieved a great victory.” And then they continue  on with their five-point explanation of why this is such an awful, terrible and unspeakably bad thing.

1. Trumpism reigns. They got that right, too.

2. The Kavanaugh nomination was a farce. They almost got that right. The nomination itself wasn’t a farce, of course, but the freak show that accompanied it most certainly was.

3. Consensus culture is a foreign word. Absolutely correct. Take Germany, for instance, where they call it Konsenskultur. Every German knows that there is no consensus when it comes to Angela Merkel’s migrant madness meltdown, for example, but the difference between Germany and US-Amerika here is that the Germans behave as if there is. Germans normally being the all too direct ones, it is the Americans this time who make no qualms about how divided they are in Trump America.

4. There are no clear rules for dealing with accusations. Not true. Making false accusations, like the ones made against Kavanaugh here, is against the law. American laws allow those falsely accused of a crime to pursue a course of action in court, generally based on defamation of character. And this, I believe, needs to be done here.

5. The Supreme Court is now in a real mess. Well, they got the mess part right, I guess. But the Supreme Court mess is now in the process of being cleaned up, although there is certainly still quite a bit of work yet to do.

All in all, a solid job, Spiegel journalists. I’ll give you a seven for your five points this time. Keep the change.

Mit der Wahl von Donald Trumps Kandidaten Brett Kavanaugh zum Richter auf Lebenszeit am Supreme Court haben der US-Präsident und die Republikaner einen großen Erfolg errungen.

GETTING Fed Up?

Whoever wrote this doesn’t know much about Germany yet: Why Germans Are Getting Fed Up with America.

Germany

Check this out: It’s getting harder for Angela Merkel and the German elite to hold back growing anti-Americanism. Hilarious. I could read nonsensical stuff like this all day.

The poor hack who wrote this. If you don’t understand that anti-Americanism is one of the seven pillars of wisdom that defines what being German is all about, you’ll never get the rest of it (the other six are just variations on anti-Americanism – anti-capitalism, anti-freemarketism, anti-individualism, anti-Israelism, anti-hightechism, anti-anythingnewthatisnotGermanism).

But maybe this article is satirical or something. Some of this stuff is really, really good. As in funny as hell: The cautious German elite, led by Merkel with her preference for compromise in any situation, has been holding back the anti-American sentiment so far. But that position may become untenable as Germans realize their country isn’t getting much out of being a U.S. ally. A majority can’t imagine a situation in which U.S. soldiers would need to defend Germany against aggression, and as the values gap with the U.S. grows and the economic benefits of partnership shrink, anti-Americanism can become an increasingly attractive political card to play.

Germany has done the U.S. a favor by not seeking a leadership role in the decades since its reunification. There’s no guarantee, however, that post-Merkel it won’t take a more assertive stance, using the European Union as a vehicle for its ambition. Even if a post-Trump U.S. government walks back some of his unilateralism, the mistrust that’s been building up for years won’t go away overnight.

Please write more!