Some interesting sounbytes on Deutschlandfunk this morning.

Özdemir of the Green party admitted that he had lost voters but insisted that it had nothing to do with AfD and that no Green voter would ever vote AdD.- The sleepy journalist didn't challenge him on where his voters had gone if not to the AfD.

Then an SPD guy spoke and said that it was a great victory for SPD as things could have been far worse. When asked about his voters switching to AfD he said, yes, that was worrying, but no party had lost fewer voters to AfD than the SPD. I don't know if he was accusing Özdemir of being a liar and again, the journalist didn't challenge him on it.

And surprise surprise, they did actually allow an AfD guy to say a couple of words and even occasionally let him complete a sentence. they were still much more aggressive with him than they were with the other guys.

For the AfD it is a great victory as I think there hasn't been a party that has gone from zero to over 20 percent since the DDR fell. Even in their heyday years of the 1980s, the Greens never managed to sweep the stakes like that. Merkel has a real problem on her hands here but continues to stick her head in the sand.

I've said it all along, if you don't deal with the issue of the migration crisis, then the voters will vote for someone that will. Germany's politicians have been avoiding the reality for far too long. Their inaction has led to this. The train-wreck that will follow next years General Elections will be spectacular.

My prediction: Merkel will be gone in the spring, likely she'll step down. Like Blair is only remembered for Iraq, so Merkel's legacy will be the migrant crisis and everything that follows. Depending on whether or not there's another big terrorist attack on German soil, the AfD *could* be one of the two largest parties in the Bundestag. They're certainly going to be a major player.

What should most concern the "political elite" is that most votes for the AfD came from previous non voters. This is a huge pot from which they can draw.

A German Facebook friend posted this.

Seems the German Greens have given up on even trying to be appear intelligent.

That's like saying all Republicans are racist because Trump made a stupid remark. Neither are particularly intelligent.

At least some Republicans are criticiszing Trump.

The German Green party appears to be pretty silent over this clown. I rather think they mostly agree with him.

I think "Wilkommenskultur" will be mocked for many years to come and go down in history as one of Germany's biggest policy failures. It's becoming more and more obvious that the German population didn't "embrace" the "Wilkommenskultur" from the start, but rather had it forced on them by "Mama Merkel" and a small group of Left Wingers, and supported by the media with disproportionate pictures of children refugees. Now Germans are seeing the reality first hand, and it doesn't look anything like the 30 second movie trailer portrayed it

If you really think that, more power to those who claim that "the thing with the jews" was just a little exaggeration and that if the Führer only knew that, ...


I think one can already be glad if only some of those so-called experts could at least pronounce the name "Mecklenburg" correctly ...

If indeed they ever embraced it. The German media has been extremely complicit with Merkel throughout the last year. Now the German media is generally less ctitical or investigatiive than that of many other countries, but they don't generally ignore a good story when one falls into their lap, especially not a story that makes the government look bad.

Methinks the pictures of Germans welcoming refugees were at least in part staged. Apart from among lefties, I'm not really seeing much support for this whole thing in Germany.

This will be expensive

Source

March 2011; Chancellor Angela Merkel decreed that the country's nuclear power reactors which began operation in 1980 or earlier should be immediately shut down.
This decision was not based on any safety assessment.

Merkel may be in trouble. Not from the AfD, but from Martin Schulz who's given up his cushy number in Brussels to challenge as SPD leader for the Chancellery. Latest polls show he's made significant inroads into Merkel's lead.

Still, plenty of time between now and September for things to change.

Schulz overtakes Merkel in opinion poll as favorite for German chancellor

what losses really? most of the nuclear utilities also own the coal and gas power plants which increased their operations after this decision.

opps, sorry, just realised the date of your post..

here is another aspect:

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/...-a7556986.html

No problem.

I was referring to the cost of closing and dismantling nuclear plants which can be an expensive business.

That is correct.. it can be a hefty sum.

Bringing Schultz home is in itself an admission by the SPD that their present leadership needs to be replaced. They're basically admitting what everybody else has been saying all along, the Sigmar Gabriel just isn't up to the job.

AfD are of course not going to be anywhere near strong enough in the polls to get anywhere near government. But they're going to upset the arithmetic of coalition making.

I'm not sure how Merkel will be holding up in this new era. Her faux "motherly" spell appears to have been broken. One has to wonder who even listens to her anymore. She got castigated by Erdogan just yesterday for using the wrong choice of words.

We seem to be transitioning over to a different governing style. It looks like it will be Daddy's turn to govern again.

They may be considering Martin Schulz to lead through the next era. The next era looks like it will require some balls. Not sure Schulz truly has any, but he may be the leading candidate thought to have any.

I think Schulz would probably much worse if his time with the EU is anything to judge him by.

Merkel still has massive support because there's so many people who will vote CDU no matter what. I was having a drink with a guy who was black through and through a few weeks back. His argument for voting Merkel? "The migrant crisis has been terrible, no question. But Merkel caused this crisis and it's her responsibility to sort it out!". Some rationale.

There isn't a Daddy in Germany right now.

But I'm not actually sure that there needs to be one. A leader can only do so much. The bigger problem in Germany are the hordes of yes men and automatons in politics who just bleat the mantras they are told to bleat. Change needs to come from the grassroots, not from the top.

In Baden Würrttemberg, which was long a CDU stronghold, the Greens are replacing the CDU as being the default party. Many people such as owners of small businesses, farmers and middle class people in small towns who all used to be the core of the CDU support base are now switching to the Greens.

Same rationale for appointing Boris as foreign secretary