Germany
January 24, 2022 — Paul Mirengoff
As a Russian invasion of Ukraine becomes more and more likely, major European nations behave more and more in character. Britain, in its finest Churchill-Thatcher tradition, is stepping up to the plate. It just delivered anti-tank weapons to Ukraine. Germany, reverting to its traditional approach of accommodating Russian aggression to further its interests, reportedly refused Britain permission to transport the anti-tank weapons through German airspace. Germany denies doing so, but
»
September 26, 2021 — John Hinderaker
Germany held its parliamentary election today, and the race between the retiring Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and the left’s Social Democrats is too close to call. The London Times reports: The chancellor’s conservatives were predicted to lose to the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) by roughly a percentage point, although the outcome remained too close to call. *** The finely balanced results herald a phase of uncertainty that could drag
»
July 22, 2021 — John Hinderaker
Most people understand that leftists take advantage of real or alleged crises to expand their power. But an equally important phenomenon is that they use crises of various kinds to excuse their own incompetence. (Covid has served such a purpose over the last year and a half; it has become a near-universal excuse for failure of performance.) The recent floods in Germany, which killed more than 150 people, are a
»
March 15, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Germany’s ruling Christian Democrats (CDU) suffered big defeats in two state elections yesterday. It lost in both Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, collecting only about one-fourth of the vote in each. Angela Merkel, the CDU leader, will be stepping down as chancellor. Yesterday’s results suggest that her successor as party leader may be in for a difficult time. Germany has been hit much less hard by the Wuhan coronavirus than have the
»
January 18, 2021 — John Hinderaker
Sure, it’s Germany. But don’t think it can’t happen here. If you have harbored the suspicion that covid hysteria is a Trojan horse for totalitarian control over our lives, Germany points the way forward: Germany to hold Covid rule breakers in REFUGEE CAMPS under new crackdown to stop Brit mutant virus explosion. GERMANY’S worst Covid rule breakers will be held in detention centres under new proposals being drawn up by
»
January 11, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
In the 1970s, my constitutional law professor, Gerald Gunther, was invited by the West German government to visit that country and to lecture on the American Constitution. Gunther and his family had fled Germany in the 1930s. When he returned home to California, Gunther commended the Germans as hosts and for what they were accomplishing as a society. However, he added that they still didn’t quite understand the importance of
»
August 1, 2020 — John Hinderaker
The Associated Press reports on opposition by Germans to their government’s shutdown order. The AP, of course, has a position on the issue: Thousands protested Germany’s coronavirus restrictions Saturday in a Berlin demonstration marking what organizers called “the end of the pandemic” — a declaration that comes just as authorities are voicing increasing concerns about an uptick in new infections. Got that? The demonstrators are wrong! The AP wouldn’t want
»
May 6, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
A week or two ago, it looked like German soccer would resume this coming weekend. That was the plan, but it did not receive approval from the government. Now, the government has approved a resumption of play in mid-May for Germany’s top two professional soccer league. Games will be played behind closed doors, with only around 300 people — players, coaches, referees, team officials and staff, broadcast crews — allowed
»
May 4, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Germany and France are set to reopen schools. However, the two nations are taking very different approaches. Germany is starting with two sets of students. Those about to move from primary school to secondary school and those about to take graduation/college entrance examinations will be the first back. Germany is still considering when other sets of students will be allowed to return. France will start with a much younger group
»
April 24, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
The German Bundesliga is poised to become the first sports league I follow to go back to work. In fact, players are already at work. They are practicing in anticipation of matches to be played in early May. When the Bundesliga season came to a halt, teams had nine matches left to play. And, for once, there was a genuine race for the championship. Normally, Bayern Munich has the top
»
April 14, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Yesterday, I wrote about how Germany’s coronavirus death numbers were extremely low compared to nearby countries. I noted that Germany had about the same number of reported cases as France (approximately 130,000 cases). Italy had about 155,000 cases. Spain had about 165,000. Yet, Germany was reporting only 3,022 deaths. France was reporting more than 14,000. Spain was reporting around 17,000 and Italy nearly 20,000. Looking at the numbers on a
»
April 13, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
Germany has been in the coronavirus news lately because of a study from a town, Gangelt, that tested 80 percent of its population (of 11,634) for the virus. The study found that the infection morality rate was about 0.3 percent. (See here for criticism of the study.) Without wanting to discount this study, it may be worth noting that, since the early days of the pandemic, Germany has been reporting
»
March 25, 2020 — Paul Mirengoff
The number of new Wuhan coronavirus reported cases in the U.S. (per Worldometer) continued to rise on Monday and Tuesday, though not dramatically. On Sunday, the number was 9,339; on Monday it was 10,168; and on Tuesday (March 24) it was 11,075. Reported deaths in the U.S. rose from 117 to 140 to 225. The total count is now 780 with most of them coming in the past three days.
»
January 8, 2020 — Steven Hayward
No sooner do I post an item yesterday about Germany’s pathetic energiewende than the thesis is confirmed today in, of all places, the New York Times! German journalist and Times op-ed contributor Jochen Bittner today writes of “The Tragedy of Germany’s Energy Experiment,” where these familiar-sounding highlights appear: My country has embarked on a unique experiment indeed. The Merkel government has decided to phase out both nuclear power and coal
»
August 8, 2019 — John Hinderaker
Through human history, the basic standard of well-being has been the ability to afford an adequate diet, especially one that includes animal protein. But, in classic first world style, some German politicians have decided that Germans eat “too much” meat. Hence a campaign to raise taxes on meat: “Green tax on sausages a step too far for Germans.” Germany has raised the prospect of imposing a hefty tax on meat
»
January 15, 2019 — John Hinderaker
We wrote here about how Der Spiegel, Europe’s largest news magazine, made a fool of itself by publishing an entirely fictional article about Fergus Falls, Minnesota, and the “Trump voters” who live there. While the extent to which that article was fiction may have been unintended, its anti-Trump–and anti-American–tenor was not. Now, Der Spiegel has published a hit piece on Richard Grenell, the U.S. Ambassador to Germany. Like the residents
»
January 8, 2019 — John Hinderaker
…in the United States and yet lands only in Europe,” as Tom Wolfe first said. I would offer a corollary: political violence is always descending from the right, yet when it lands, it nearly always comes from the left. Thus, for example, liberals love to talk about hate, but somehow they never mention the great political hater of our time, Bernie Bro James Hodgkinson, who took a rifle to a
»
