Hey - tell you what. Those German liberal and Green parties are pretty dang slick, even when their backs are up against an election wall.
There's no quit in them, even when the pooled water that hosed blood from the murdered bodies of their fellow Germans off the sidewalk and cobblestones is barely dry on the pavement.
When you have to whip a crowd up to strike first? By Gott, they can find the people to get out there.
John had an update on the weekend attack yesterday, and the knife-slinging perp was everything one has come to expect when these horrors arise in Europe.
The attack happened Friday at a 'Festival of Diversity' which the German town of Solingen was holding to celebrate 650 years since its founding. There was an outdoor concert and close to the stage three people were killed and several more injured by a man wielding a knife. The attacker reportedly stabbed each person in the neck and then ran away. People at the scene claimed he shouted "Allahu Ackbar" during the attack.
A manhunt was launched but about 24 hours later the killer turned himself in to police. He was identified as Issa al Hasan, a Syrian asylum seeker who should have been deported 18 months ago. I've added in the attacker's full name which German publications aren't allowed to print.
At the end of 2022, al H[asan], 26, traveled to Germany and applied for asylum in Bielefeld. According to the so-called Dublin rules of the European asylum system, however, Bulgaria would have been responsible for him because he had entered EU territory there for the first time. The German authorities submitted a transfer request, the Bulgarians agreed to this, and the Syrian was to be transferred there.
Let's check those details again and...nope. Sadly, no surprises.
There are two things fueling a populist movement that has shaken Germany's political establishment to the core in recent elections - the craptastic economy...
Slowly but surely, all the necessary conditions for a revolution in Germany are coming together.
— Ralph Schoellhammer (@Raphfel) August 26, 2024
Next week's regional elections will be an interesting taking of the temperature. pic.twitter.com/b5Ummt8UvU
...and the overwhelming problems inherent with the unrestricted immigration policies that began during the Angela Merkel years and have increased the misery index exponentially.
In June, I wrote a post about the plague of "knife crimes" in Germany - they average sixty A DAY - and how those constant assaults were also helping fuel the populist rise of the 'right-wing' Alles fur Deutschland (All for Germany or AfD) party despite the persistent persecution of party leaders and members by German legal state system.
German politician of the AFD party, Marie-Thérèse Kaiser was just convicted & fined $6,000+
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) May 6, 2024
Her crime? Posting statistics showing that Afghan immigrants are disproportionately committing sexuaI assauIt in Germany. pic.twitter.com/UgbEl8xYw6
In June, Olaf Scholz's already teetering coalition received a major shock when AfD pulled off a huge upset in the EU elections. Part of what the chancellor had counted on to pull his battered party out of the fire was giving the vote to 16-year-olds for the first time. Everyone knows the Greta Thunbergs of the world love the Greens. But the bet bit all of the EU countries lowering the voting age badly.
The June younger vote went overwhelmingly to the AfD, and in the upcoming Saxony and Thuringia regional elections scheduled for 1 September, there is little hope for Scholz to recoup any ground. In the early non-binding "youth-vote," it seems the youngsters would like their country back.
More than 9,000 young people headed to the polls in the Under-18 election before the state elections in Saxony and Thuringia, and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) crushed the competition in both votes, leaving the German political establishment reeling and issuing warnings.
...In other words, the push by Greens to allow under-18s to vote in elections may be leaving many in the party second-guessing their move.
Things were fraught enough for Scholz and his coalition partners that the last thing they needed was yet another horrific immigrant-related atrocity to fire up the voters in those two regional contests but damned if they didn't get one.
I mean, their polling absolutely sucks, and it's sure looking like they're going to get their asterisks handed back on a pewter platter.
On September 1, Saxony and Thuringia will elect new state parliaments. The Alternative for Germany (AfD), a party known for its hostility towards migration and for being in part right-wing extremist, could become the strongest party in both federal states. It is currently polling at around 30%, and the deadly knife attack in Solingen, a city in Germany's most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia, may very well give the party an additional boost.
For years, the party's calls for a much more restrictive immigration policy have been greeted with approval, especially in eastern German states such as Saxony and Thuringia. The debate over the deportation of criminal refugees has intensified in the wake of the suspected terrorist act committed by Issa Al H., a Syrian asylum seeker whose application for asylum was rejected.
The opposition party head is fearlessly calling for an end to immigration, period...
🇩🇪‼️ BREAKING:
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) August 26, 2024
Germany's AfD party co-leader, Alice Weidel, calls for a COMPLETE STOP to immigration and naturalizations for 5 YEARS.
This is one of the strictest proposals on immigration from any party in Europe.
The call comes in the wake of a Syrian migrant murdering 3… pic.twitter.com/h2SR2s1fkG
...and even your own partners are saying, "Maybe we should do something about this, yo..."
...There are also calls from within the ranks of the conservative Christian Democratic Party (CDU) for swift and tangible consequences. Shortly after the knife attack in Solingen, party leader Friedrich Merz called on Chancellor Olaf Scholz to "work with us quickly and without further delay on decisions aimed at effectively preventing further terrorist attacks like the one last Friday in our country." He said that deportations to Syria and Afghanistan should be carried out.
What to do, what to do?
Why, you call out your loyal street soldiers to demonstrate against the far-right as if they'd been the problem the whole time!
BRILLIANT STRA-TEE-GERY
After a deadly knife attack in the German city of Solingen, tens of thousands took to the streets to march against Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) in Saxony and Thuringia.
T...he suspect is reported to be a Syrian, with possible connections to the Islamic State. According to the reports, the suspect should have been deported in 2023.
...Less than 48 hours after the deadly assault, rallies took place in Saxony and Thuringia, protesting against the AfD. With state elections on September 1, the protestors aimed to present a “firewall” against “the far-right.”
“With our demo, we … call on all democratic parties to draw a line [under] the far-right and the AfD – before and after the state elections,” the organisers said.
By George, that should do it.
...In Erfurt, 4,500 people demonstrated against the AfD under the motto: “Stop right-wing extremism – go to the polls on Sunday”. Prominent Green politicians were present, including Ricarda Lang and Katrin Göring-Eckardt.
Don't protest knife crimes or those who commit them. Protest the party campaigning on making the knife guys go away!
You've got to love the Left. I mean, you just have to.
They even larped at forming protective human walls for non-existent attacks and to express their "solidarity," not with their murdered German brethren, mind you.
But with the knifey types.
...Some demonstrators in Solingen stood in front of an asylum seekers’ home to express their solidarity and to protect it from alleged imminent right-wing attacks.
Aren't they gems of human kindness?
Before these revolting displays, Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD) were getting shellacked by the anti-knife, populist, we-want-our-country-back party.
...In the regions of Thuringia and Saxony, AfD is leading in the polls, with 30 per cent and 32 per cent support respectively.
In Thuringia, it is followed by the CDU (21 per cent), Sahra Wagenknecht’s new party BSW (20 per cent) and the hard-left Die Linke (14 per cent). In Saxony, the CDU polls at 30 per cent and BSW at 15 per cent. All other parties have less than 6 per cent in both regions.
Scholz's group should be nothing more than a regional vapor after this, and the chancellor is already in panicked talks with rivals.
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has held a meeting with the country’s opposition leader to discuss how to change immigration policy and increase deportations, after a deadly knife attack on Friday linked to Islamic State.
Described as the “Solingen Summit” by the media, after the attack in the western city of Solingen, in which a Syrian who had applied for asylum in Germany is alleged to have killed three and injured eight people, details of the meeting between Scholz and the leader of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), Friedrich Merz, held in Berlin were not made public. Merz is due to hold a press conference later on Tuesday.
Merz, seen as Scholz’s main challenger in the September 2025 general election, has called for a “turning point” in Germany’s “naive” migration policy.
I'll lay money the opposition is going to wait this one out, too, before they commit to a single thing
Instead of addressing the issue of mass immigration, the German far-left government is calling for what would effectively be a ban on knives. https://t.co/KBKPVt0bhS
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) August 27, 2024
Scholz is balanced on a knife's edge, and I do not think he has a good handle on this at all.
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