[kreuzberger]

Another AfD kicking today in the former East.

In Nordhausen, Thüringen, their lad had walked the first round in a mayoral election and was practically Gauleiter-Designate, and was within sniffing distance of the 50% mark.

Up stepped the existing independent mayor today and beat Herr Prophet by almost ten clear points in the run-off.

Phew, Jägermeisters all round.


EDIT: 50%, not 5%

[Boiler]

Phew, Jägermeisters all round.

Not carbonated Jägermeisters..?

[kreuzberger]

Not carbonated Jägermeisters..?

To be honest, I can't drink that PCP-infused rocket nonsense - carbonated or otherwise - unless I am already way past my bedtime.

Incidentally, or new favourite boozer in Schöneberg serves shots with something fairly similar but without the coarse edges. I'll make a note of it next time.

[Boiler]

Interesting... well, I'm about to crack open a bottle of Fraoch to have with my supper.

[The Weeping Angel]

Another election to "look forward" to.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67018486

Voters in Germany's largest state, Bavaria, choose a new parliament on Sunday, after a very nasty election campaign in which populist upstarts have rattled the status quo.

The far-right AfD, tied in second place, is hoping for a big result.

Its leaders say they are being physically attacked or threatened.

But their opponents accuse them of twisting the truth for political gain, by playing into a narrative of victimisation.

Either way the debate is unusually toxic.

Days before the vote, Tino Chrupalla, the co-leader of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), was taken to intensive care after feeling unwell during an election rally in Bavaria.

The party describes it as a "physical attack" and AfD supporters on social media are convinced that Chrupalla was injected with a toxin.

Police are investigating, but so far say they have no evidence he was poisoned.

Mr Chrupalla is now out of hospital, but it could take another few days for the results of tests to be confirmed, during which time speculation is only growing.

In September, the AfD's other co-leader, Alice Weidel, was taken by Swiss police from her home in Switzerland to a safe house because of security concerns. The party says there was a risk of an attack against her and her family.

[kreuzberger]

The press here are reporting that Alice Weidel and her Tamil wife, (aye, let that sink in for a moment), have bolted to Mallorca and are wandering around beach-front restaurants without a care in the world.

No mention yet of Marinus van der Lubbe, who, according to grandad, burned the Reichstag in 1933 and was guillotined anyway.

Meanwhile, the AfD had eased back a few points in recent days and are unlikely to finish tomorrow night on much more than 15%.

It seems more likely that Söder (CSU / CDU) will end up taking his Christian taliban under the duvet with Hubert Aiwainger who, as leader of the "freie Wähler" (free voters), has been desperately trying to play down that vehemently pro-Nazi past which has actually boosted his popularity in pre-election polls.

Keeping tweedle-sieg and tweedle-heil under 50% is going to be a tall order in Bavaria tomorrow. Hessen should be less of a concern with a CDU / SPD / GRÜNE coalition being most workable.

[soulboy]

Injected with a toxin? More than a whiff of Farage's loose wheel nuts there.

(On a side note, while typing this Praga Khan's 1992 Belgian techno anthem Injected With A Poison has decided to take residency in my head. This is not a good thing.)

[The Weeping Angel]

Sounds more like France than Germany.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... -right-afd

The symbolism that German farmers chose to express their discontent with the government in the first days of the new year was as unambiguous as it was ominous: by the side of rural roads across the country, there were sightings of makeshift gallows dangling traffic-light signs, a reference to the colours of the three governing parties.

The chilling sculptures are harbingers of unprecedented cross-sector protests and strikes hitting German roads and railways from Monday, and speak of a dramatic change of mood in a country long feted for its consensus-seeking approach to industrial relations, especially compared with its more traditionally strike-prone neighbour France.

With key elections coming up in eastern German states this year, even some farmers fear the new revolutionary spirit could play straight into the hands of a buoyant far right.

An eight-day countrywide protest by agricultural workers, involving motorway blockades and described by the head of the farmers’ association as “the like of which the country has never experienced before”, will go ahead in spite of the government’s partial U-turn on the cuts to diesel subsidies and farming vehicle tax breaks that had triggered them.

[kreuzberger]

There we go.

If you are united in your disgruntlement about tax breaks on diesel, attack ships, plan to break the motorway network and converge on the federal capital, well, "legitimate concerns".

If you walk slowly or sit down in protest about climate action, you can expect a tooled-up robocop raid before dawn and to be put on terrorist watch-lists by various federal state executives.

It's an absolutely disgraceful state of affairs.

[Youngian]

Didn’t know the Red Army Faction was still operating in the early 90s. What’s fascinating about this arrest is how Klette stayed off the radar for 30 years and why she slipped up.

Alleged Red Army Faction (RAF) fugitive Daniela Klette has been arrested by German police after more than 30 years in hiding.

Officials say they do not yet know how she managed to stay underground for 30 years, whether she was in Germany and who helped her to remain undetected.
The apartment is now being searched. Police have found magazines and ammunition for a handgun in the apartment but have not found a weapon.
Officials allege Ms Klette was part of the RAF's so-called third generation, which was active in the 1980s and 1990s.
It allegedly killed the Deutsche Bank boss in a roadside bomb, and shot dead a centre-left politician, tasked with privatising business in former communist East Germany, in his home. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68415892.amp

[kreuzberger]

This is getting funnier by the hour. Fresh from a long, hot summer spent lion-hunting, the Keystein Kops have been charging around town, executing dawn raids with the net result of absolutely no terrorists whatsoever and generally pissing off the neighbourhood.

They have come up with the wizard idea of asking the two remaining fugitives to give themselves up. That'll do the trick

[kreuzberger]

Not content with becoming a laughing-stock, Herr Plod has installed a cover disk copy of Corel draw and presented the public with this handy "How to spot a terrorist" graphic. (He's the one on the right.)

They really are fucking amateurs.

[Youngian]

Das Plod would like to question Jason Isaac, Tony Robinson and Jeff Bezos.

[kreuzberger]

Weed was legalised to today in Germany. No one is talking about it, the press struggle to give the story third billing, and precisely nobody gives a monkey's. We might not have descended in to a faragist, AfD-fuelled hell-hole of community strife, after all.

Personally, it doesn't impact me or mine in any way. If we wanted to, the roof terrace could be churning out the stuff during the summer months, but none of us take draw more than once in a blue moon. Such is life.

Perhaps, they will green-light the Bolivian in my lifetime. It would be quite nice to pop down to the chemist on a Saturday afternoon, rather than wait for two hours for the usual shite-and-light to turn up. We live in hope.

[Youngian]

Will you be able to buy weed from legal retail outlets?
Placing cannabis growing on the same footing as winemaking and growing tobacco would be a sensible way for the UK to proceed, purely for your own consumption and doing swapsies at clubs.

[kreuzberger]

... purely for your own consumption and doing swapsies at clubs.

I think that that is basically the plan, including online clubs which facilitate trading in a roundabout kinda way. It appears though that the DIY sheds don't want to get involved with saplings - or so they say at the moment - although it is quite conceivable that florists and local food markets will take a more enthusiastic view.

Personally, I am more concerned with our tomatoes, chillis and peppers, and how they will turn out.

[The Weeping Angel]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68931170

It is a spring evening in Germany's eastern city of Cottbus, and dozens of people have crowded into a small venue to hear a man who once dubbed himself the "friendly face" of National Socialism (Nazism).

Two other men with prior links to extremist groups are also in the room, including a candidate for forthcoming state elections.

They're all there to hear Matthias Helferich at a youth event organised by members of the prominent far-right party, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).

The AfD has repeatedly rejected accusations of extremism.

However, by investigating the past of these three men, the BBC has found a clear crossover between AfD figures and far-right networks, some of which are classed as anti-democratic or racist by German authorities.

Stephan Kramer, a regional spy chief in eastern Germany, has told the BBC the AfD now poses a danger to the "roots" of democracy, as the party eyes electoral gains in three states in the east this autumn: Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg.

[kreuzberger]

Just in case anyone has been listening to the BBC and has concluded that we are on the verge of annexing the Sudetenland, the AfD just about scraped 15% in this protest vote rather than the 18% which was being predicted if, hypothetically speaking, there was a GE next Sunday.

Later in the year, they will do better in the schnapps-sodden East where they are promising unicorns and stuff. Nonetheless, this will give them no national platform and merely afford them an opportunity to make fools of themselves at the Länder level.

[Youngian]

Sure he’s not a Reform PPC?

Mr Helferich told the BBC he didn't seriously call himself the friendly face of Nazism at all but was merely "parodying" left wingers online.

[Tubby Isaacs]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/artic ... tsche-bahn

One of Germany’s main rail corridors is to be closed for months as part of a major overhaul of the ailing train network of Europe’s largest economy that is expected to last until the end of the decade.

Years of underinvestment and lack of political direction are being blamed for the state of the German railways, which have in recent years been beset by a massive increase in breakdowns, delays, cancellations and other major technical mishaps and led to unflattering comparisons with infrastructure in the developing world.

This can't be true. I keep reading that Germany has fantastic services, paid for from the profits "they" make in Britain. And they've got some ticket that takes you all over the network for less than a short single in Britain, or something. Sounds like they could have done with charging properly for it.

I'm sure it's not all about money, but Germany ran 6 fiscal surpluses from 2014-19. That sort of stuff makes George Osborne look rational.