Tag Archives: Angela Merkel

A League of Leagues of Their Own in Europe, by Tom Luongo

Posted on September 6, 2018 | Leave a comment

Pan European nationalism is coming, according to Tom Luongo, and it will work profound changes in Europe’s political architecture. From Luongo at tomluongo.me:

“There’s no crying in baseball!”
— A League of Their Own

The Great Realignment is coming to Europe next year.  All the writing is on the wall.

This summer saw German Chancellor Angela Merkel survive a leadership challenge by her coalition partner Horst Seehofer over her immigration policy.

She needs political wins to maintain her hold on power.  Standing firm against President Trump on the Nordstream 2 pipeline and having a cordial summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin is a good start.

Because most of Europe is tired of 1) Germany setting policy for the entire EU and 2) anti-Russian sanctions killing their trade.

But week-long protests in the Saxony town of Chemnitz over the stabbing of a local man are dogging her.  Germany’s polling numbers continue ebbing away from Merkel.

The more she is weakened the more emboldened her opposition becomes.

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Is Trump Pushing Germany and Russia Together? by Tom Luongo

Posted on August 26, 2018 | 1 comment

Is Trump’s long game the dissolution of NATO? From Tom Luongo at tomluongo.me:

Vladimir Putin’s charm tour of Germany and Austria last weekend is a significant sign of change to come.

To the U.S. and European press Putin is only a step or two away from Hitler reincarnated (thanks chiefly to Bill Browder).  It serves the purpose of maintaining the post WWII institutional order.

But, Putin is always nothing but relentlessly patient in his diplomatic efforts, even when European leaders, like Merkel, treat him and Russia poorly.  She is, after all, the leading mouthpiece and political ally of The Davos Crowd that believes they run the world.

The conduct of his Foreign Ministry under Sergei Lavrov always strikes the perfect balance between bluntness and diplo-speak. 

So, color me surprised when I see the official photos of his meeting with Merkel carefully framed to paint him in a positive light.

putin-merkel-summit

Summit?  This isn’t a Summit? Just a friendly chat.

Putin in light blues and grays, Merkel in green, the fountain in the background, leaning in looking directly at each other and a simple Sunday morning chat.

If I didn’t know better I’d be expecting them to share photos of their grandkids, well, Putin’s grandkids anyway.

Optics are important and this image captures what both parties wanted to convey.  This meeting is the beginning of a shift in the relationship between Germany and Russia for the better.

And the question is why?

The obvious answer is necessity brought about by pressure being placed on both countries by Donald Trump through sanctions and tariffs and their shared interests represented by the Nordstream  2 pipeline.

But, this meeting went far deeper than that, especially since Merkel’s Foriegn Minister Heiko Maas boldly proclaimed that Europe needs an alternative to the SWIFT system of international electronic payments so as to keep global trade alive while the U.S. further weaponizes the U.S. dollar.

The U.S. just seized another $5 billion of Russian ‘oligarch’ money using Credit Suisse as its enforcement arm.

Again, the question is why?

To continue reading: Is Trump Pushing Germany and Russia Together?

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As Merkel’s Star Fades, This Is What Is Really Happening Behind the Scenes, by Srdja Trifkovic

Posted on July 9, 2018 | Leave a comment

The recent European “agreement” on immigration was a face-saving exercise for Angela Merkel and not much else. From Srdja Trifkovic at russia-insider.com:

“(Former Eastern bloc nations) know ideologically driven idiots when they see them, and they are able and willing to stand up to them.”

For many years German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been regarded, with reason, as the most powerful woman in the world. Over the past few months, Merkel’s authority has diminished precipitously, however, mainly due to her irrational immigration policy. That much became obvious at last weekend’s emergency EU summit on immigration.

The meeting was hastily convened at Merkel’s insistence to develop a joint European strategy to deal with the ongoing migrant onslaught. In reality, it was meant to be “Operation Save Mutti”: a means of preventing her government’s collapse by showing that the Union can develop a tougher immigration strategy.

Her goal was to ease the pressure from the Christian Social Union (CSU)—her Christian Democratic Party’s (CDU) Bavarian partner—which had threatened to leave her ruling coalition unless she agreed to end her open door policy. CSU leader Horst Seehofer had threatened to resign as Germany’s interior minister unless Merkel agreed to refuse entry to migrants who had applied for asylum elsewhere in the EU, potentially forcing an early election at which the Alternative for Germany (AfD) would be likely to increase its share of the vote.

“This is not about whether Frau Merkel stays as Chancellor next week or not,” Xavier Bettel, Luxembourg’s Prime Minister, announced as he came out of the meeting in Brussels. Unwittingly (or perhaps mendaciously), he let the cat out of the bag. Indeed, the summit’s true objective was to appease Merkel’s domestic detractors—but the task proved to be beyond her. The former powerbroker of Europe has been reduced to the mendicant pleading for the appearance of unanimity on a key issue which has divided the EU and changed the political landscape of Europe beyond recognition.

The Brussels “deal” merely asks member-countries to voluntarily accept migrants in the name of “solidarity,” and to settle them in “processing centers” (don’t call them “camps,” please!). It does not say where those centers would be located, how they would be organized, or where unsuccessful asylum seekers would go in the end.

To continue reading: As Merkel’s Star Fades, This Is What Is Really Happening Behind the Scenes

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Could Germany Fracture? by Charles Hugh Smith

Posted on June 29, 2018 | Leave a comment

It is SLL’s contention that damn near any country or political subdivision can fracture in the coming devolution and decentralization, and in fact most of them will.  From Charles Hugh Smith at oftwominds.com:

All sorts of centralized organizations that appear rock-solid may well melt into air as the disintegrative dynamics gather momentum.
Rising political and social discord that is generally being attributed to “populism” may actually be the re-emergence of ancient geographic and cultural fault lines. An often-overlooked manifestation of this might be the nation-state of Germany, a possibility fleshed out by longtime correspondent Mark G.
It’s both convenient and expedient for politicos to blame “populism” for the fracturing of the status quo. Given the unsavory undertones of ethnic/religious bias of “populism,” this allows the media-savvy politico (and aren’t they all media-savvy?) to paint his/her opponents as racist via the code-word “populist.”
Labeling dissenters “populists” doesn’t explain or predict anything. In terms of economic classes, it’s more insightful to distinguish between the Protected Class (insiders and favored elites) who benefits enormously from the status quo and the Unprotected Class (outsiders, marginalized workers, those without privilege or access to cheap capital).
But this doesn’t exhaust the sources of profound social discord. As historian Peter Turchin explained in his recent book Ages of Discord, historical eras are either integrative periods in which people find reasons to cooperate and join forces, or disintegrative periods in which reasons to split apart become dominant.
Clearly, the world-system of this era is entering a disintegrative phrase, and dismissing dissenters as “populists” solves nothing. For insight on how the disintegrative phase may manifest in Germany, let’s turn to Mark G.’s commentary:
The breakdown of the Bavarian CSU and German CDU center-right coalition (refounded post WWII by Konrad Adenauer) is historic. And it has definite regional implications. I think we could be watching the beginning moves not in a “German Brexit” but in the political collapse of the modern German state into multiple components. As I mentioned last year, I personally expect this because modern Germany is a rump survival of Bismarck’s Wihelmine German Empire. It has lost all strategic rationale for its existence. And under Frau Merkel it has almost no military forces and no control of its own borders. Such a ‘state’ cannot long endure.
To continue reading: Could Germany Fracture?

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Boomeranging, by Raúl Ilargi Meijer

Posted on June 26, 2018 | 2 comments

Migration “crises” are the consequence of policies pursued in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia for decades. It’s wrong to blame recently elected populist politicians like Trump and Salvini. From Raúl Ilargi Meijer at theautomaticearth.com:

here is no migration crisis, said an article in Toronto’s Globe and Mail a few days ago. French President Emmanuel Macron followed up over the weekend with “there is no migrant crisis”. Really? If this is not a crisis, what is? Yes, numbers of refugees landing in Europe are down from 2015. But it’s not a numbers game. It’s about people.

If Angela Merkel’s political career is forced to a close next week because the EU cannot agree on a unified refugee policy, will they call it a crisis then? Oh wait, both Macron and the G&M agree that there is a crisis, just not a migration one. No, “the crisis is political opportunism”.

But can the crisis be placed squarely on Trump and Italy’s Salvini, or is perhaps what led to their popularity partly to blame for that popularity? Salvini didn’t bomb Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, nor did Trump cause the mayhem in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, which is where most migrants come from. That was Bush, Obama, Billary, Blair, Cameron and their ilk. And before them Kissinger etc.

So who are the political opportunists exactly? “We” have exploited all of Africa, the Middle East and South and Central America for so long and so disgustingly thoroughly that it’s today the zenith of misleading arrogance to blame the consequences on Salvini, Trump and other right wingers.

You could see them coming from miles away. You created them. You literally built the space they occupy. What is happening is that the chaos we created in all these places is now boomeranging right back at us, on our own borders. And we’re not getting out of that chaos until we stop creating it in places where we don’t live. Until we allow people a future where they are born.

No, you’re right, Trump is not going to do that. His role is to disrupt the existing system that has relied on creating chaos for decades (or even longer, if you will). Salvini will play that part in Europe, by blowing up the EU. And after they’ve gone, we must find better people than them, but also better than all the rest that today fill our political classes, if we’re to turn chaos into order.

To continue reading: Boomeranging

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Merkel’s Troubles Began in Syria and End in Italy, by Tom Luongo

Posted on June 25, 2018 | Leave a comment

Angela Merkel is immolating herself on the pyre of open immigration. From Tom Luongo at tomluongo.com:

It looks like we are entering the end of Merkel-ism in Europe.  German Chancellor Angela Merkel is approaching her final days in that position.

Be it next week or the end of this year, we are looking at unprecedented change in European politics thanks to Merkel’s insistence on taking in millions of Syrian and North African refugees from chaos unleashed by aggressive and insane foreign policy actions by the U.S. and supported by the EU.

From the destruction of Libya to the manufactured ‘civil war’ in Syria the displacement of millions of people was created from the desired to destabilize the entire region for the betterment of the U.S. and its allies in the region, Saudi Arabia and Israel. Jordan, Turkey and Qatar were originally involved but have since jumped ship in the wake of Russia’s intervention there.

Merkel’s current plight politically stems from her intractability in accepting the chain of events that led us to this point. All of the problems of Europe now stem from the collision of these foreign policy disasters and the economic degradation of the euro-zone from the flawed structure of the euro itself.

And the insistence of the U.S./Saudi/Israeli alliance to continue trying to manufacture a win in Syria that is clearly beyond their control at this point only tightens the noose around Merkel’s neck.

Let me explain.

Simply put, there is a perfect storm now arising in Europe as the consequences of a number of policies converge into this period of time.  They are as follows:

  1. Having each country maintain a separate central bank to issue sovereign debt denominated in euros is the main culprit for enriching Germany and the northern bloc like the Netherlands and Holland and impoverishing much of the rest of Europe — Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece, to name a few.
  2. This mispriced the risk of these loans by implying a German backstop to them via the ECB and the Bundesbank.
  3. As the euro rose in the 2000’s the value of the debt these countries issued skyrocketed in real value, destroying their fiscal situation and forcing debt restructuring which kicked the can down the road.

To continue reading: Merkel’s Troubles Began in Syria and End in Italy

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European World Leaders Feel The Heat Of Unmitigated Migration, by Jon Hall

Posted on June 23, 2018 | Leave a comment

Immigration, debt, or both, will be the issues that blow Europe wide open. From Jon Hall at fmshooter.com:

This week, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are facing unprecedented circumstances as a restless populace finally awakens to the dangers of free and unfettered migration across Europe.

According to a new poll, nearly half of German voters want Merkel to resign. After Merkel rejected proposed reforms to migration policies, many voters took chagrin to her pro-immigration policies that often come at the expense of ordinary citizens.

43% of Germans said they want Merkel to quit, another 42% said she should stay – 15% were unsure of how they felt.

After years of open borders and the bloodshed of innocent citizens, the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) demanded that Merkel get tough on illegal migrants and gave her a two-week deadline to find solutions to the rampant problems associated with refugees and migrants before they close the region’s borders without her consent.

CSU leader and interior minister Horst Seehofer is leading the charge against the policy of Merkel’s open borders for Germany. Among his demands are returning illegal migrants who have been rejected for asylum in other nations bordering the country and focusing on German citizens first and foremost. Sound familiar?

President Trump even weighed in on the situation earlier this week, calling out the soaring crime rate in Germany and the vulnerable situation Merkel now finds herself in amidst a violently changing culture where migrants refuse to assimilate…

On the heels of Merkel’s embattled position, French President Emmanuel Macron even went so far as to attack and criticize the rise of nationalist and conservative political parties across Europe. Macron said:

I’m saying to you in the gravest terms: Many hate the European Union, but they have hated it for a long time, and now you see them rise, like leprosy, all around Europe, in countries where we thought that they would never reappear. Our neighbors are saying the worst things and we’re getting used to it! They’re making the worst provocations and no one is horrified by that…

Macron willfully ignores the reality and scope of the situation Europe faces. To simply write off the rise of populist movements across Europe as “leprosy” is entirely ignorant and a testament to how foolhardy Macron seems to be regarding France’s future as a free, Westernized society. Lest we forget, the tragic 2015 Bataclan terror attacks that left 130 slaughtered transpired in Paris, as well as the 2016 truck attack in Nice, France that left 86 dead and 458 injured.  

Notably, Macron’s anti-nationalist comments come shortly after Italy refused two more ships of refugees from docking at their ports, barring the refugees easy access to the country.

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Is Merkel’s End Right Around the Corner? by Tom Luongo

Posted on June 19, 2018 | Leave a comment

The “ultimate political cockroach” may have met her can of Raid: immigration. From Tom Luongo at strategic-culture.org:

Last year after the German elections I penned a piece saying, “The End of The Merkel is Nigh.” Merkel’s early failures at putting a coalition together drove that conclusion.

Back then I pegged CSU leader and former Governor of Bavaria, Horst Seehofer, as the pivotal figure in potentially seeing Germans go back to the polls if he stood up to Merkel.

But, ultimately, if Merkel’s CDU/CSU coalition party is to stay together, and there’s no guarantee of that anymore, it will have to dump Merkel herself if it wants to survive as a voting bloc.

Moreover, the CSU, led by Bavarian Governor Horst Seehofer, could break off from the CDU making any kind of coalition building impossible without a re-vote.

Seehofer eventually agreed to a deal with the Social Democrats, granting him the power of Interior Minister. This gives him control over immigration policy. The same power that Lega leader Matteo Salvini is now wielding against Merkel with almost gleeful abandon on behalf of Italians.

So, it is no surprise to me that Seehofer is leading the charge against Merkel’s continued insistence, at the behest of her globalist backers, of forced immigration for the EU and Germany, despite a clear mandate from voters to the contrary.

The knives are coming out in Germany against Merkel and it is only the pro-EU Social Democrats who are coming to her defense. But, their relationship with Merkel is what has them in the depressed position they are. German voters roundly rejected the SPD in 2017, including in their normal stronghold of Rhineland-Westphalia, as they saw Merkel’s EU ambitions and ties to the U.S. as a betrayal.

Everywhere across Germany citizens are angry about Merkel’s letting more than one million people into the country with no desire to integrate into German society. Crime is up, budgets are strained and communities are being uprooted.

This is for Merkel’s need to be seen as a benevolent dictator over the EU after she shook down Greece, mafia-style, over debt relief in 2015.

Merkel-ism Stands for Power

Merkel’s losses have been Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) gain. In fact, all the minor parties have benefited. And the problem now is there is no clear support for any party nationwide.

A weakened SPD leadership initially rejected another grand coalition to salvage its reputation with voters and rebuild the party. But it eventually caved to the reality of it being the only way for Merkel to form a government.

To continue reading: Is Merkel’s End Right Around the Corner?

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The End Of Merkel? CDU Lawmaker Admits Germany Could Have A New Chancellor “By The End Of Next Week”, by Tyler Durden

Posted on June 17, 2018 | Leave a comment

Angela Merkel’s stance on asylum and immigration may have become so toxic that she’ll have to go. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

It’s looking increasingly likely that German Chancellor Angela Merkel may have attended her last G-7 conference.

A day after the euro whipsawed on conflicting reports touting the collapse of Merkel’s governing coalition, a lawmaker from Merkel’s own party said the Chancellor could be out by the end of next week during an appearance on BBC World at One (via Express). On Friday, German media reported that Merkel’s junior coalition partner, the CSU, had announced the end of its alliance with Merkel’s CDU – though that report was quickly denied.

While the German public’s anger over Merkel’s “open door” policy has been simmering for years, the instability within the ruling coalition – which features a decades-old political alliance between the CDU and CSU – intensified when Merkel decided over the weekend to veto a planby Interior Minister Horst Seehofer aimed at controlling and reducing illegal migration. The minister’s refusal to back down has already shattered an uneasy truce between conservative backers and opponents of her liberal asylum policy.

German MP Kai Whittaker, a CDU member, said Merkel’s clashes with Seehofer – who is demanding that German border police be given the right to turn back migrants without identity papers or who are already registered elsewhere in the European Union – are threatening to bring about “a new political situation. And probably a new chancellor.”

As Whittaker astutely points out, the political crisis stems from the fact that the issue of immigration has become “a power question”.  The AfD, which outperformed expectations during Germany’s fall elections, owes its rise largely to its anti-asylum stance. And as the chaos builds, Whittaker explained that German lawmakers are largely in the dark about what is happening with the leadership.

“We are in a serious situation because the question of the migration crisis evolved into a power question…the question is who is leading the Government? Is it Angela Merkel or is it Horst Seehofer? Everybody seems to be standing firm and that’s the problem.”

[…]

There is a master plan to solve the migration crisis, which consists of 63 ideas of Horst Seehofer.

Wittaker also pointed out that Seehofer’s clashes with Merkel could be linked to upcoming local elections in Bavaria, where the conservative party is concerned about retaining a majority.

“This must have to do with the coming election in Bavaria because it is vital for the Conservatives to win an overall majority because that’s why they have a national importance.”

“This kind of has the potential to diminish the authority of her and Horst Seehofer and it could well be that at the end of next week we have a new situation. Probably a new Chancellor.“

To continue reading: The End Of Merkel? CDU Lawmaker Admits Germany Could Have A New Chancellor “By The End Of Next Week” 

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G-6? 7? 8? How About the Gang That Can’t Shoot Straight? by Tom Luongo

Posted on June 13, 2018 | Leave a comment

President Trump doesn’t much like the EU, and he especially doesn’t like it’s guiding light, Angela Merkel. And they don’t like him. From Tom Luongo at tomluongo.me.com:

I have to say that as much as I don’t like the direction Trump’s foreign policy has gone, there are still plenty of moments of unbridled joy in watching the man work a crowd.

His suggestion of allowing Russia back into the G-7 is one of those moments.  Trump has a nearly preternatural way of getting under the skin of his opponents.  And this stink bomb was one of them.

It highlighted the divide between the G-7, one of the most important tools of control by the globalists, and Trump.  It also highlighted its irrelevance to him, since China was hosting Russia and six other important countries at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit in Quindao at the same time.

In effect, Trump was saying, “Why should I listen to you?  You aren’t important enough to listen to.”

It also highlights how he’s been tough on Russia while his domestic opponents still cling to the fantasy he’s somehow Putin’s water carrier.  Putin and Trump haven’t spoken since the end of March, according to Putin.

He’s moved on and, like Trump, makes no bones about not needing the G-7’s approval of his actions.

Most importantly, however, Trump dared them all to kick him out of the G-7 for not playing by their rules, just like they did to Putin for reunifying with Crimea.

I’ve been hard on Trump about his trade policy.  I fundamentally do not believe tariffs solve anything.  They are a symptom of deeper economic problems.  All they do is shift capital away from profitable endeavors to unprofitable ones for political purposes.

But, at the same time if he truly is using them to get all the protection barriers to trade dropped, then I will applaud him loudly.

I don’t, however, believe that is his ultimate goal.  So, a lot of this performance at the G-7 this weekend was just that, performance.

It’s Trump’s greatest strength, sowing chaos and discord, forcing everyone to reassess their positions.

Breaking Germany

The more I watch Trump in action the more I’m convinced his goal is to break Germany.  His antipathy for Angela Merkel is palpable.  He knows she’s the main conduit for the worst impulses of the globalists meeting at Bilderberg this weekend.

He knows her goal is to destroy Europe through forced immigration and internal wealth transfer payments.  So, it almost seems to me that any policy stance he takes is designed to harm Germany and that includes continually driving a wedge between Germany and Russia.

To continue reading: G-6? 7? 8? How About the Gang That Can’t Shoot Straight?

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