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German car-sharing service shuts down in Belgium over theft and misuse

The same trends are seen in other multicultural cities

Remix News | March 12, 2025

The EU elites kick and scream about countries like Hungary, but the very capital of the European Union is a crime-infested slum in many areas, featuring organized criminals and vast ghettoes. The German car-sharing service, Miles, has finally had enough, and is pulling operations in all of Belgium, citing Brussels as especially problematic.

“Despite a positive trend in figures in Belgium, operations have been increasingly affected by vandalism, misuse of vehicles and attempted theft, particularly in the Brussels region, over the past two years,” a company statement announced. “These external factors had a significant negative impact on the company’s financial results.”

The company has been in Brussels for three years, starting in October of 2022. It was already operating in German cities such as Berlin, Munich, and Hamburg, while in Belgium, Miles vehicles were also seen in Ghent and Antwerp.

In fact, just last year, the Miles general manager of Belgium, Raphaël Zacchello, described just how bad it was in Brussels. He urged the authorities to act, saying: “The rate of vandalism in Brussels is incomparable with what we see in all German cities, even in Berlin, which is a big metropolis.”

Of course, most of the publications writing about Miles shutting down are not naming the suspects, but most of them were “youths,” many who filmed themselves joy-riding in stolen Miles vehicles.

Some may think it is a stretch to claim this Miles car-sharing company leaving Belgium as anything more than an isolated incident involving one company complaining too much. However, there is reason to believe it speaks to the failures of not only diversity but also the fight against climate change.

Many of these car-sharing services are hailed as “green” solutions. The idea that you will “own nothing and be happy” is posited on the idea that not everyone will need to buy a car, for instance, but can instead rent one when needed and use that to get around, which will reduce consumption and help the environment.

Apparently, this model is not working in Belgium. A lot of it aligns with trends seen with other Green parties in Europe, which promote public transportation and then make public transportation extremely unsafe for people to use due to mass immigration. Foreigners, for example, commit 59 percent of all sexual violence on German public transport networks. Migrants have become so out of control on certain train lines that public unions are protesting and calling in sick out of stress. The German Green Party has been forced to propose “women-only” train cars in Berlin to deal with the soaring sexual violence.

It should also be noted that Belgium is one of the most diverse cities in Europe, with approximately half of its 1.1 million residents born outside the EU, most notably from Africa and Turkey. However, diversity is not proving a strength, and judging by where EU politicians live and work, they believe the same thing, as it is also one of the most segregated cities in Europe.

Miles is also far from the only vehicle-sharing service that has found operating in Belgium to be a minefield. In Brussels, nearly all GO Sharing electric scooters were stolen by “young” people who know how to circumvent security measures on the rental system. They even offered crash courses online to effectively steal the scooters, which were used for joyrides until all their batteries were empty in an incident that occurred in April of 2022.

The same trends are seen in other multicultural cities across Europe. Berlin, for instance, tries to promote itself as a green, progressive city, and many of the most powerful left-wing parties are focused on getting as many cars off the roads and as many bikes on the roads as possible. Yet, the city is continuously plagued with tens of thousands of bicycles being stolen every year. And only 4 percent of bike thefts are solved in the city every year.

The overwhelming amount of those arrested are foreigners, such as this Romanian gang operating in Berlin covered by Spiegel. In another report by Tagesspiegel, it found that “a total of 66 percent of the suspects (in organized crime) were of foreign nationality, the rest were German citizens.” As Berlin’s own data shows, nearly all clan criminals have German citizenship (71 percent), which skews the statistics. Many of these same networks are operating organized bicycle theft rings, but also cars, e-bikes, and scooters, on top of drug smuggling and other criminal operations.

Of course, car-sharing woes and bike thefts are insubstantial problems when compared to other issues plaguing Brussels, including ample issues with crime, drug mafias, a radical jihadist scene, and of course, its highly segregated neighborhoods. However, all of these issues are tied together to some degree. The fact also remains, Europeans should be able to ride a train, take a bus, or rent a car for car-sharing purposes without a problem. The end of Miles is just another canary in the coal mine.

March 12, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Progressive Hypocrite, Video | , , | Leave a comment

If Germany’s €1 trillion debt deal falls through, expect tough times ahead for the incoming government

Remix News | March 12, 2025

Shortly after the election, the Christian Democrats (CDU) gleefully announced their plan for a debt bonanza, along with their new Social Democrat (SPD) partners. A total of €1 trillion would be spent on weapons and infrastructure, all Germany needed to do was suspend its “debt brake” to make it happen.

Now, the whole plan is coming under threat. The Greens have signaled they won’t back the black-red trillion-euro debt plan, at least not without some serious investment in climate infrastructure and funds for foreign nations. The CDU has signaled they want to accommodate the Greens’ requests, but even if that happens, there are other serious roadblocks ahead, including a vote in the Bundesrat, which is made up of the 16 state governments in Germany.

In addition, the March 23 deadline is rapidly approaching. After that date, the new Bundestag forms, the German parliament, and due to the new composition of parties, the votes will no longer be in place to overcome the required two-thirds majority to rewrite the German constitution.

The Greens are going to drive a hard bargain, as they hold all the cards. The liberal Free Democrats (FDP) have already signaled they will not vote for lifting the debt brake, and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and The Left Party have also ruled out such a move. That means the CDU and SPD only have the Greens or they have nothing.

In many ways, the Greens have little incentive to go along with the package. The CDU blocked lifting the debt brake while they were in power, which contributed to the collapse of the previous government. There is also no offer for the Greens to join the new government ruling coalition either.

In addition, the sister party of the CDU, the CSU, bashed the Greens relentlessly during the election. Now, the Greens are supposed to hand the CDU and SPD a nearly blank check to spend hundreds of billions on projects not especially close to the Greens’ policy goals.

Negotiations are ongoing, and it appears the Greens may accept a compromise, as long as the CDU throws them enough money. However, there will be voices in the party who remain resistant to such a deal, as it will give the CDU and SPD an enormous advantage politically.

The Bundesrat could also spell doom for the debt plans. In the east, the FDP, the Left Party, and the BSW have all shot down the plan, along with the Greens. Even in Bavaria, the CSU’s Markus Söder has not been able to convince his smaller coalition partner, the Free Voters, to back the plan.

If a state government cannot agree in the Bundesrat, then it is required by law to abstain from voting, which is counted as a “no” vote. So far, the CDU and the SPD have only secured the votes from four states, Hesse, Saarland, Saxony, and Berlin, where they also happen to govern. They also need a two-thirds majority in the Bundesrat to ensure their plan goes through.

Green Party officials in the states are also skeptical.

“Without taking important corrections into account, we do not consider the law to be acceptable. Due to the urgency of the situation, negotiations need to be held quickly, taking into account the concerns and worries of the states,” read a joint statement by NRW Deputy Prime Minister Mona Neubaur, Baden-Württemberg Finance Minister Danyal Bayaz, and Björn Feckers, the Mayor and Senator for Finance in Bremen.

If the debt deal falls through, the CDU and SPD will be facing a potentially precarious situation. If they want to spend, they will have to cut. Then, things will get messy. Migration alone is costing between €50 billion and up to €75 billion a year depending on how it’s calculated, however, both parties have few solutions on how to bring down those costs. NGOs are raking in billions, but the SPD will fight tooth and nail to ensure the funds keep flowing. These battles could play out in all sorts of ways and eventually doom the new ruling government. That trillion in debt is supposed to be there to soothe over the differences, and without all the sugar rush a trillion euros brings, the honeymoon for the CDU and SPD may be over faster than anyone expects.

March 12, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Economics, Militarism | | Leave a comment

Baerbock will be remembered as the most ignorant, arrogant and useless German FM

The German Foreign Minister leaves behind her a series of gaffes and humiliation

By Ahmed Adel | March 11, 2025

Outgoing German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock resigned as co-chair of the Greens. In a letter to her parliamentary group and the Brandenburg provincial branch, Baerbock stated that she decided to step down from the political leadership after intense years of engagement and a recent divorce from her husband.

“After years at high speed,” Baerbock wrote in the letter that she wanted to take some time to think about “what this moment means for my family and me.”

“In all this time, I have always given my all. At the same time, these intensive years also had a private price. For personal reasons, I have therefore decided to take a step back from the glare of the spotlight and not apply for a leading position in the parliamentary group,” she added.

Baerbock’s rise to the position of foreign minister demonstrates the postmodern political dominance in Germany and how the European country is an economic giant but a political dwarf. What is particularly paradoxical and tragic is that the next German foreign minister could be banal but seen as better since Baerbock has set the standard so low.

The transformation of the German Greens from an anti-war and anti-nuclear party into warmongers is due to the fact that the entire left, whether it has been converted into a green agenda or left-wing market liberalism, is led by a single radical ideology.

Europeans in leading positions of power like incoming German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Baerbock have gone through the ideological schools of George Soros and Klaus Schwab and with the help of their bosses’ ownership of the media, managed to climb to the very top of the state.

Yet, Baerbock was somehow more imprecise, paradoxical and grotesque in her actions and statements than others.

It is recalled that at the beginning of her ministerial career, Baerbock published her biography, which was full of lies about her academic career and titles. Then, at the beginning of the Special Military Operation in Ukraine, she declared that Europe was at war with Russia, after which she awkwardly explained that she did not really think that was the case. Her statement that she would only negotiate with Russia when President Vladimir Putin makes a “360-degree turn” (instead of a 180) is also a legendary gaffe.

Baerbock’s democratic capacities are evidenced by her statement that the government she heads will support the war in Ukraine regardless of the position of the majority of German citizens and the economic crisis that this support has led to.

She also made a name for herself by declaring that her ministry would pursue “feminist diplomacy,” without specifying what that meant, which was followed by the cancellation of Otto von Bismarck. The foreign minister removed the portrait of the first chancellor and founder of German diplomacy to performatively claim she broke the power of men in German diplomacy.

Nothing better demonstrates Baerbock’s failed “feminist diplomacy” than when she arrived in Damascus after the takfiri leader of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, Ahmed al-Sharaa, took power and he refused to shake her hand and left her awkwardly and humiliatingly shaking her own hand.

The less than favorable reputation she enjoyed as the head of German diplomacy is also evidenced by the fact that when she arrived on an official visit to China and India, her hosts did not wait for her at the airport, and in India, even the German ambassador was late to greet her.

Making her time as foreign minister more sufferable is her evident detachment from reality, as seen when she said on March 1 that Europe must show leadership against Trump’s “ruthlessness” and “must defend the rules-based international order and the strength of law more than ever against the power of the strongest.” Rather, a “rules-based international order” has never existed and was just a mantra repeated by Washington to impose its will against enemies and allies alike, including the European Union. In fact, it is alarming that European leaders still believe in a supposed “rules-based order.”

Baerbock also issued a direct warning to Washington, claiming that Russia is a perpetrator and Ukraine a victim. According to her, straying from this narrative would mark “the end of international law—and with it, the security of most states” and that, in the long run, “it would also be fatal for the future of the United States.”

The German foreign minister has not accepted that her country and the EU collective are political dwarfs, and that the world system has always operated on Great Power politics, not a “rules-based international order.” It is precisely for this reason that the EU and Berlin are on the sidelines of a peace settlement for Ukraine and why Baerbock will only be remembered as Germany’s most ignorant, arrogant, and useless foreign minister.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

March 11, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Ex-Ukrainian PM outraged by German intel chief’s warning

RT | March 10, 2025

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko has hit out at German intelligence chief Bruno Kahl after he claimed that resolving the conflict with Russia before the end of the decade could pose a security threat to Western Europe.

An end to the Ukraine conflict before 2029 or 2030 could allow Russia to regroup and “increase security risks for Europe,” Kahl told state broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

Kahl’s statement is the first official confirmation that the EU’s security is being prioritized at the expense of Ukraine’s sovereignty and the lives of its citizens, Timoshenko, who leads the opposition Fatherland (Batkivshchyna) party in Ukraine, claimed in a Facebook post on Friday.

“At the cost of Ukraine’s very existence and the cost of the lives of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, did anyone decide to pay for Russia’s ‘demolition’ for safety in Europe? I didn’t think they would dare to say it so officially and openly…” she wrote.

Kahl’s remarks “explain a lot,” she said, urging the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, to respond while calling for an immediate end to the conflict.

The German official’s comments echoed recent remarks by French President Emmanuel Macron, who claimed that Russia poses a direct threat to the rest of Europe and urged EU member states to increase defense spending.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has consistently dismissed Western leaders’ claims that Moscow could attack NATO as “nonsense.”

Divisions remain within the EU on the Ukraine conflict, with some countries advocating a stronger military response from Kiev while others, such as Hungary, call for peace talks. Brussels has continued to push for military aid to Kiev.

In March, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen launched the “rearm Europe” initiative to boost EU defense with up to €800 billion ($870 billion). In February, she announced €3.5 billion ($3.78 billion) in aid to strengthen Ukraine, calling its resilience an EU priority. Moscow has vowed to take measures to protect its security, warning that the EU’s militarization and confrontational rhetoric could escalate tensions.

Timoshenko’s response comes amid reports that she and members of former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko’s party recently held discussions with the team of US President Donald Trump. According to Politico, Ukrainian opposition figures presented themselves as more open to negotiations than Vladimir Zelensky. Both Timoshenko and Poroshenko, presently sanctioned on suspicion of high treason, confirmed their contacts with Trump’s team.

March 10, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Germany Doesn’t Have Money for Merz’s Defense Boost – Ex-AfD MEP

Sputnik – 07.03.2025

Berlin plans to change its fiscal rules and “invest” €500 billion ($543 billion) in infrastructure and defense, as explained by the chancellor-in-waiting, Friedrich Merz.

It’s alarming that Merz is prioritizing military spending because of the mythical Russian threat, especially amid efforts for peace in Ukraine, Gunnar Beck, a legal academic and former AfD MEP, tells Sputnik.

Merz has long pushed for higher defense spending. Last December, he stated the Bundeswehr would need at least $87 billion annually, up from the current $57 billion. German media also reported a proposed $433 billion defense fund.

“Germany hasn’t got the money,” Beck stresses. “It’s got to borrow the money. It’s at the expense of social spending and badly needed investments in infrastructure and research and development.”

“It’s not only Germany that’s proposing to increase military spending. The EU, under [Ursula] von der Leyen, has announced it will borrow another €800 billion ($866 billion) to support Ukraine. When you add up these figures, it’s already more than a trillion. And they are clearly coordinating their policies,” Beck concludes.

March 7, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

How viable is Macron’s nuclear umbrella proposal?

By Drago Bosnic | March 7, 2025

As the United States and Russia are engaging in talks to avoid the possibility of an uncontrollable escalation, the European Union and NATO keep doing the exact opposite. Brussels wants the war to continue, including by pushing for the deployment of its troops in Ukraine. Worse yet, as the diverging interests of the new Trump administration and the EU/NATO become more evident, the latter is now trying to appease Washington DC by portraying this as a “peace initiative”.

On the other hand, Trump and his team understand that the world is drastically different to what it was in the aftermath of the (First) Cold War. This is precisely why they’re far less belligerent toward Moscow (at least in terms of rhetoric) than was the case with the previous administration.

The EU/NATO is terrified of the prospect of being left to face Russian military power in Ukraine (and possibly beyond) on its own. To prevent that, Western European powers are now looking to escalate tensions in hopes of drawing the US back into a crawling confrontation with the Kremlin. However, as the Trump administration is still showing no interest to get involved, the EU/NATO is now pushing for a strategic escalation.

This is particularly true for French President Emmanuel Macron who is now talking about placing the “old continent” under the French nuclear umbrella. On March 5, he tried to justify this by claiming that “[President Vladimir] Putin is now threatening all of Europe” and declared that “Russian aggression knows no borders”.

“We are entering a new era. If a country can invade its neighbour in Europe and go unpunished, nobody can be sure of anything. Beyond Ukraine, the Russian threat is real – it affects the European countries,” Macron stated in a televized address, adding: “President Putin is violating our borders to assassinate opponents, manipulate elections.”

For decades, “evil dictator and bloodthirsty tyrant Putin” has been the political West’s go-to bogeyman for both foreign and domestic policy issues. Whether it’s elections, political instability, price hikes or even personal problems, look no further than Vladimir Putin. The “evil, bear-riding Russians” are coming for you and “the only way” to prevent it is to go to war with them, preferably thermonuclear.

According to the mainstream propaganda machine, if you think this sounds like total madness, you must be a “Putin troll”. Unfortunately, this is how the EU/NATO is trying to portray the ongoing crisis, which is why it’s effectively impossible for Russia to find anyone remotely reasonable to talk to in Europe. And they keep proving this each passing day.

Macron insists that the EU/NATO “need to prepare”. It would seem he’s trying to fill the power vacuum as the US is looking to shift its strategic focus to the Asia-Pacific. The endemically and pathologically Russophobic United Kingdom seems to be supporting this initiative, as it falls perfectly in line with its strategy of pushing continental powers against each other.

This is why there have been numerous meetings and conferences in support of not only continuing but also escalating the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict. However, conventional capabilities of Western European powers are nowhere near enough to match that of Russia (not even in Ukraine, let alone when the entire Russian military is taken into account).

“I want to believe that the US will stand by our side, but we have to be ready for that not to be the case,” Macron complained, adding: “France has to recognize its special status – we have the most efficient, effective army in Europe.”

He then stressed that his country “has nuclear weapons to provide to the broader Western alliance if called upon”. Macron went on to explain that he’s considering the possibility of expanding the French nuclear umbrella to all of Europe. He also cited the words of Germany’s (most likely) upcoming chancellor, Friedrich Merz, who recently stated that he wanted to discuss the possibility of extending French and British nuclear umbrellas to also include Germany.

It should be noted that Berlin already has American nuclear weapons stationed on its territory as part of NATO’s nuclear sharing policy. However, with the recent shift initiated by the new US administration, European member states still loyal to the anti-Trump Deep State seem to be looking for viable alternatives.

“We need reforms, we need to make choices, and we need to be brave,” Macron stated, adding: “[Merz] has called for a strategic debate on providing that same protection to our European allies… whatever happens the decision will be in the hands of the president of the Republic and the heads of the army.”

He also said there will be a meeting of the EU/NATO army chiefs in Paris next week, hinting this could be one of the matters they will be discussing. Besides the US, the UK and France are the only member states who have their own nuclear weapons. It should be noted that this initiative also means that the EU/NATO is fully aware that nuclear weapons are the only way to “even the playing field” with Russia’s conventional military power.

However, what this also means is that Moscow would be forced to respond with its own nuclear arsenal – by far the largest and most powerful in the world. In fact, the difference between the number of thermonuclear warheads in Russia and the US is larger than the combined arsenal of the UK and France (around 500).

London and Paris both have SLBMs (submarine-launched ballistic missiles), with the latter also operating nuclear-capable aircraft. This is a lower level of deterrence than in countries like Russia, China, India and the US who have nuclear triads (aircraft, submarines and land-based missiles), without even considering the size of Moscow’s strategic arsenal which is upwards of a dozen times larger than the combined Franco-British stockpile.

It’s still unclear what exactly Macron has in mind when talking about extending this arsenal to the rest of the EU/NATO. If he’s talking about replicating (or even replacing) the US nuclear sharing policy, the Kremlin might not react immediately, as this would change little in terms of the strategic balance of power.

However, if Macron wants to deploy these weapons close to Russian borders, this changes the calculus entirely, as it would force Moscow to either reactivate some of the non-deployed warheads or make new ones (if not both, depending on how far the EU/NATO would go). What’s more, the Russian military also operates non-nuclear strategic weapons, specifically hypersonic missiles such as the new “Oreshnik”.

The entire political West lacks remotely similar systems, including the US (which, as previously mentioned, is slowly shifting its strategic focus away from Europe). In other words, the EU/NATO cannot match Russia even on a tactical or operational level, let alone strategic. However, it keeps poking the Bear and pushing for escalation on all three fronts.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

March 7, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | , , , , | Leave a comment

German ministry dismisses lawyer for supporting Gaza, rejecting genocide

MEMO | March 4, 2025

The German federal ministry has dismissed a lawyer in Berlin due to her opposition to the Israeli assault on Gaza, the Palestinian Information Centre reported.

On Saturday lawyer Melanie Schweizer posted a video on X stating: “Yesterday I got fired as a civil servant working at the Federal Ministry in Germany. Why? In a nutshell because I was speaking out against the genocide in Palestine committed by Israel, against the German support thereof, against the violence and crimes happening there.” Highlighting the German government and police’s efforts to silence pro-Palestine voices, she added: “This is where we’re at in Germany. This is a blatant attack on our constitutional rights to freedom.”

She called on supporters of Gaza to make their stance clear and “keep speaking up, keep using your voice, losing your job is not the worst that can happen to you, losing your life is. Losing your freedom right is.”

https://twitter.com/Melaniebelizi/status/1895904365225058324

Many European and American companies have previously dismissed employees over their stance on the war on Gaza and their opposition to genocide.

In October 2024, Microsoft dismissed two employees after they organised a sit-in at its headquarters in Washington, D.C., in solidarity with the victims of the Israeli assault on Gaza.

On 22 January, the Washington Post reported that Google had dismissed more than 50 employees last year after they protested against the “Nimbus” contract, citing concerns that the technology could support military and intelligence programmes used by the Israeli occupation army in its war on Palestinians in Gaza.

In September 2024, the Noguchi Museum in New York announced the dismissal of three employees for allegedly violating the dress code by wearing keffiyehs, which have become a symbol of solidarity with the Palestinian cause.

March 5, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Reality confronts the Euro ruling-strata – ‘Through the tear in the fantasy bubble, they see their own demise’

By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | March 4, 2025

They (the Euro-élites) don’t have a chance: “If Trump imposes this tariff [25%], the U.S. will be in a serious trade conflict with the EU”, the Norwegian Prime Minister threatens. And what if Brussels does retaliate?

“They can try, but they can’t”, Trump responded. Von der Leyen has, however, already promised that she will retaliate. Nonetheless, the combined suite of the Anglo administrative forces is still unlikely to compel Trump to put U.S. military troops on the ground in Ukraine to protect European interests (and investments!).

The reality is that every European NATO member – to varying degrees of self-embarrassment – admits publicly now that none of them want to participate in securing Ukraine without having U.S. military troops provide ‘backstop’ to those European forces. This is a palpably obvious scheme to inveigle Trump into continuing the Ukraine war – as is Macron and Starmer’s dangling of the mineral deal to try to trick Trump to recommit to the Ukraine war. Trump plainly sees through these ploys.

The fly in the ointment, however, is that Zelensky seemingly fears a ceasefire, more than he fears losing further ground on the battlefield. He too, seems to need the war to continue (to preserve continuing in power, possibly).

Trump calling time on the Ukraine war that has been lost has seemingly caused European elites to enter some form of cognitive dissonance. Of course, it has been clear for some time that Ukraine would not retake its 1991 borders, nor force Russia into a negotiating position weak enough for the West to be able to dictate its own cessation terms.

As Adam Collingwood writes:

“Trump has torn a huge rip in the interface layer of the fantasy bubble … the governing élite [in the wake of Trump’s pivot] can see not just an electoral setback, but rather a literal catastrophe. A defeat in war, with [Europe] left largely defenceless; a de-industrialising economy; crumbling public services and infrastructure; large fiscal deficits; stagnating living standards; social and ethnic disharmony – and a powerful populist insurgency led by enemies just as grave as Trump and Putin in the Manichean struggle against vestiges of liberal times – and strategically sandwiched between two leaders that both despise and disdain them …”.

“In other words, through the tear in the fantasy bubble, Europe’s elites see their own demise …”.

“Anybody who could see reality knew that things would only get worse on the war front from autumn 2023, but from their fantasy bubble, our élites couldn’t see it. Vladimir Putin, like the ‘Deplorables’ and ‘Gammons’ at home, was an atavistic daemon who would inevitably be slain on the inexorable march to liberal progressive utopia”.

Many in the Euro ruling-strata clearly are furious. Yet what can Britain or Germany actually do? It has quickly become clear that European states do not have the military capacity to intervene in Ukraine in any concerted manner. But more than anything, as Conor Gallagher points out, it is the European economy, circling the drain – largely as a result of the war against Russia – that is dragging reality to the forefront.

The new German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has shown himself to be the most implacable European leader advocating both military expansion and youth conscription – in what amounts to an European resistance model mounted to confront Trump’s pivot to Russia.

Yet Merz’s winning CDU/CSU achieved only 28% of votes cast, whilst losing significant voter share. Hardly an outstanding mandate for confronting both Russia – and America – together!

“I am communicating closely with a lot of prime ministers, and heads of EU states and for me it is an absolute priority to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible, so that we achieve independence from the U.S., step by step”, Friedrich Merz said.

Second place in the German election was taken by the Alternative for Germany (AfD) with 20% of the national vote. The party was the top vote getter in the 25-45 year-old demographic. It supports good relations with Russia, an end to the Ukraine war, and it wants to work with Team Trump, too.

Yet AfD absurdly is outcast under the ‘firewall rules’. As a ‘populist’ party with a strong youth vote, it becomes automatically relegated to the ‘wrong side’ of the EU firewall. Merz has already refused to share power with them, leaving the CDU as pig-in-the-middle, squeezed between the failing SPD, which lost the most voter share, and the AfD and Der Linke, another firewall outcast, which, like AfD, gained voter share, especially among the under-45s.

The rub here – and it is a big one – is that the AfD and the Left Party, Die Linke (8.8%), which was the top vote getter in the 18-24 demographic, are both anti-war. Together these two have more than one third of the votes in parliament – a blocking minority for many important votes, especially for constitutional changes.

This will be a big headache for Merz, as Wolfgang Münchau explains:

“For one thing, the new Chancellor had wanted to travel to the NATO summit this June, with a strong commitment to higher defence spending. And even though the Left Party and the AfD hate each other in every other respect, they agree that they won’t give Merz the money to strengthen the Bundeswehr. More important, though, is the fact that they won’t support a reform to the constitutional fiscal rules (the debt brake) that Merz and the SPD are desperate for”.

The Rules are complicated, but in gist dictate that if Germany wants to spend more money on defence and aid to Ukraine, it had to be saved from elsewhere in the budget (most likely from social spending). But politically, saving on social spending to pay for Ukraine hasn’t played well with the German electorate. The last coalition failed on precisely this issue.

Even with the Greens, Merz still will be short of the two-thirds majority necessary to make constitutional changes, and the ‘Centre’ just doesn’t have the fiscal space for challenging Russia without U.S. funding. Von der Leyen will try to ‘magic’ money for defence from somewhere, “but German youth are voting against the Establishment parties who are hated. They can build a few Leopards if they want. They won’t get recruits”.

Whilst the EU and Britain are proposing to raise billions to arm themselves against some imaginary Russian invasion, it will be done against the backdrop of Trump saying explicitly – on the threat of a Russian invasion of NATO – “I don’t believe that; I don’t believe it, not one little bit”.

Another Euro-shibboleth ripped by Trump.

Thus, how will the European public, which has largely soured on the Ukraine war, react to higher energy costs and more tax and social service cuts, in order to pursue an unwinnable war in Ukraine? Starmer already has been warned that the (government debt) ‘bond vigilantes’ will react badly to yet more UK government debt as the fiscal situation wobbles precariously.

There are no obvious solutions to Europe’s current predicament: It is, on one hand, an existential conundrum for Merz. And on the other, it is the same one that dogs the EU as a whole: To get anything done, a parliamentary majority is a basic necessity.

The ‘firewall’, though primordially intended to protect the ‘Centrists’ in Brussels from Rightist ‘populists’, was subsequently turbo-charged in Brussels by Biden’s issuing of a foreign policy determination to all U.S. foreign policy ‘actors’ to the effect that populism was a ‘threat to democracy’ and must be contested.

The practical outcome however, has been that across the EU, blocking coalitions were formed of odd (minority party) bed-fellows agreeing to keep the Centrists in power, but which rather has led to endless stasis and an ever increasing detachment from ‘we, the people’.

Angela Merkel governed in this way, kicking the can of reform down the road for years – until the situation ultimately became (and still is) insoluble.

“Can another coalition of short-sighted centrists arrest the decline of the economy, fix the failure of leadership, and free the nation from its pernicious political trap? I think we know the answer”, writes Wolfgang Münchau.

There lies a bigger problem however: As Vance very explicitly warned at the recent Munich Security Forum, Europe’s enemy lies not with Russia; It lies within. It derives, Vance implied, from the fact of having a permanent bureaucracy, assuming to itself the exclusive prerogative of autonomous governing power, yet incrementally becoming ever-more remote from its own base.

Tear down the firewalls, Vance advocated, in order to return to the (abandoned) principles of that earlier democracy originally shared between the U.S. and Europe. Implicitly, Vance is targeting the Brussels Administrative (Deep) State.

The Eurocrats see in this new front an alternate American-supported attack on their Administrative State – and perceive therein their own demise.

In the U.S., there is acknowledgement that there is an “institutional resistance to Trump” in the DOD, DOJ and the FBI. It proves, Margot Cleveland argues, that those touting the need for “institutional resistance” and the supposed independence from the executive branch, are the opponents to democracy – and to Trump.

Given the close nexus between the U.S., the British and European Deep States, the question arises as to why there is such strong parallel resistance to Trump amongst European leaders also.

Ostensibly, it is not in Europe’s interest to mount a concerted resistance against the U.S. President over a failed war. Is the European frenzy then fuelled by a wider (U.S.) Deep State desire to neuter the ‘Trump Revolution’ by demonstrating, in addition to the U.S. domestic opposition at home, that Trump is causing havoc amongst the U.S.’ European allies? Is Europe being pushed further down this path than they would otherwise have chosen to venture?

For Germany to change course – albeit unthinkable for Merz – it would require only a minimal amount of imagination to envision Germany again linked to Eurasia. The AfD gained 20% of the vote on just such a platform. Really, there probably is little other option.

March 4, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Trump effect goes global! ‘Anti-green sentiment’ growing worldwide

Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Germany, France, Italy, Argentina & others — booting out ‘progressive climate policies’

By Marc Morano | Climate Depot | March 3, 2025

The Trump Effect goes global! Insider Mag : “Anti-green sentiment worldwide… After returning to the Oval Office, Donald Trump’s first order of business was to pull the U.S. out of various environmental and energy efficiency initiatives. Right-wing populists gaining ground across Europe hold similar views. …

If populists successfully halt the world’s progress towards a “green” transition, the planet could face utterly tragic consequences …

Argentina, currently governed by prominent climate skeptic Javier Milei, may also withdraw from the Paris Agreement. …

In Germany, France, Italy, and other European countries, far-right parties, known for their climate skepticism, are gaining support. …

In France, following the triumph of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party in the European Parliament elections last summer, President Emmanuel Macron announced early parliamentary elections. … National Rally and its allies increased their number of seats in parliament from 89 to 142. National Rally calls the EU Green Deal, which aims to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, a tool of punitive environmentalism. …

In Italy, elections in 2022 brought the far-right to power for the first time since Mussolini’s day.

Related:

POLITICO : ‘Global action falters’ as ‘climate action is quickly becoming the catchall boogeyman for many Western countries’ – Germany ‘is making a U-turn’ – New Zealand ‘scrapping its climate goals’ & ‘Canada & Australia may soon follow suit’

Germany’s green backlash: ‘The end of Germany’s climate crusade’ – Used ‘climate policy as a punching bag’ – Joins ‘Austria, Belgium, Ireland & US.’ in booting out ‘progressive climate policies’ – Olaf Scholz, the defeated Germany chancellor, had led a coalition government with one of the most ambitious climate policies in the world. He had set out to achieve “climate neutrality” by 2045 – five years ahead of Britain’s net zero target, with exacting targets for rolling out electric cars and heat pumps. But with the German economy struggling, his opponents used Scholz’s climate policy as a punching bag. Friedrich Merz, the leader of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and the winner of the election, posted on social media before the vote that the economic ministry would be led by “someone who understands that economic policy is more than being a representative for heat pumps”. While on the campaign trail, Merz said that the German economic policy of recent years had been geared “almost exclusively toward climate protection,” adding: “I want to say it clearly as I mean it: We will and we must change that.”

Even the mainstream media is baling on the climate agenda!

Reuters now admits total climate fiasco! ‘The pursuit of net zero carbon emissions has been a resounding failure. Despite trillions of dollars spent on renewable energy, hydrocarbons still account for over 80% of the world’s primary energy’

NY Post : The West must soon admit it: The Paris Accord was a disastrous mistake

March 3, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , , | Leave a comment

Tulsi Gabbard questions if Ukraine is ‘aligned’ with US values

RT | March 3, 2025

Ukraine and many of its European backers may not be aligned with the US values of freedom, peace, and democracy shared by President Donald Trump, according to Washington’s director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.

In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, Gabbard was asked about last week’s heated exchange at the White House involving Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and Trump and his vice president, J.D. Vance. The tense meeting ended with Zelensky abruptly leaving the White House after being accused by Trump of ingratitude, “gambling with World War III,” and refusing to seek peace with Russia.

The incident has sparked a backlash from Trump’s critics, including several EU leaders, who have accused him of “bullying” Zelensky. However, according to Gabbard, anyone who has criticized Trump over his interaction with the Ukrainian leader is merely showing that they are “not committed to peace.”

“Many of these European countries, and Zelensky himself, who claim to be standing and fighting for the cause of freedom and democracy” are actually acting contrary to these values, Gabbard stated.

“When we actually look at what’s happening in reality in these countries, as well as with Zelensky’s government in Ukraine, it is the exact opposite,” she added. Gabbard pointed to the lack of elections in Ukraine, Kiev’s criminalization of opposition parties, the shutting down of Orthodox churches, and the complete government control over media outlets.

“It begs the question. It’s clear they’re standing against [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. But what are they actually really fighting for, and are they aligned with the values that they claim to hold in agreement with [the US], which are the values of freedom, peace and true security,” Gabbard said.

The DNI chief further criticized Washington’s EU partners, recalling Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference, where he accused European countries of implementing policies that “undermine democracy” and show that they “don’t actually believe in the voices of the people.”

“We’re seeing this in the United Kingdom, we’re seeing this in Germany, we saw it with the tossing out of the elections in Romania,” Gabbard said, suggesting that this shows a “huge divergence” between US values and those of the European nations that have backed Zelensky.

Russia has also suggested that last week’s clash between Zelensky and Trump once again proved that Kiev is not genuinely interested in peace. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has stressed that the Ukrainian leader’s behavior in the Oval Office “demonstrated how difficult it will be to get on the path of a settlement around Ukraine.”

March 3, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Sea Change

By Israel Shamir • Unz Review • February 20, 2025

A huge, heavy ship, loaded to the brim, is turning around in narrow straits amid perilous waters. Thus, the world is performing a rare volte face under the daring captainship of Donald Trump and his breakneck mates Elon Musk and JD Vance. They couldn’t have cut it any closer – already we felt the breath of our doom. Whether the peril be nuclear mushrooms or pandemics crafted in Pentagon biolabs, or some other totally unpredicted collapse concocted by Schwab and his ilk – our new captain seems to recognize Scylla and Charybdis. Our fragile life was about to collapse when the young programmers of DOGE dove into deep cellars of hidden data and uncovered the pearls: millions of dollars earmarked for broken Haiti to make a dream home for Chelsey Clinton; millions of social security checks being sent to beneficiaries 150 years old and older; millions earmarked for regime change, for neutering boys and girls, for planting tempest and reaping storm all over the world. And after this brief but tempestuous overture rung, above the furious sounds of battle, the telephone; the telephone call of captain Trump to captain Putin.

God revealed His mercy and tender caring for us, calming the storm at the very last moment. It is a perfect replay of the Cuban Missile Crisis multiplied by a factor of one hundred. The voices calling for global nuclear holocaust were becoming increasingly frequent and shrill recently. Now one can hope they will be pushed back to the fringe. US and Russian delegations meeting again in Riyadh have agreed to restore the normal civilized diplomatic routine: appoint ambassadors, open missions, increase tenfold the embassy staff. Since Obama’s days the embassies had been run down to the bare minimum.

Immediately the Economist and similar rags have tried to spoil the mood. The Ukrainian crisis has not been solved yet, the war still goes on, they cry. Trump can’t be relied upon, they fume impotently. I always rely upon the Economist as a perfect inverse barometer; whatever they say we may consider pure enemy hasbara. They show Trump talking to Putin with the text “The worst nightmare of Europe”. For me, the worst nightmare would be ruins of Gaza or nuclear waste of Hiroshima, for them, peace would be the worst.

Our enemies do not want us to rejoice ever, but these are the days we could and should be glad. The Ukrainian war is a minor event compared with such a worldwide tectonic shift. The West has tried to isolate, break and consume Russia for many years, once it became aware that Putin is not a new Yeltsin, that he is a stubborn, strong-willed leader, a man like Hamlet: though you can fret him, you cannot play upon him. And ever since that time, over many years, Russia has suffered in isolation, while all the world press blamed Putin and incited legions of tiny dogs from Estonia to the Ukraine to bite him. Such conflict was inevitable because Russia and the West had different interpretations of 1991. For the West, it was the final defeat of Russian independence. For Russia, it was a lesson learned. Never again will Russia attempt to play by Western rules. So how could anyone solve such an intractable divergence of opinion? It took just one call from Donald Trump.

The Ukraine war is a small thing in comparison: Russia wants its seat at the table with the big boys, it wants to be safe, not besieged. Russia wants Western troops and arms as far from its borders as was promised to Gorbachev, this is important. The Ukraine war will be terminated in due time by diplomatic negotiations between civilized adversaries, as it should be. NATO’s war policy has revealed that the majority of the European states, governed by enemies of Trump, are also enemies of democracy. JD Vance was right: they forgot they should listen to their people instead of dictating to them.

In the UK, the popular leader Jeremy Corbyn had been dismissed on the phony accusation of anti-Semitism, and replaced by an extremely pro-Jewish and anti-Russian PM. He is, of course, pro-war. He also detains hundreds and thousands of his citizens for the terrible crime of a post in the social network, or a demonstration, or even worse: a silent prayer. In England, a silent prayer in your own house is a crime, too. France continues to be ruled by Macron, an ex-Rothschild banker, also (of course) warlike. In Germany, there are elections coming soon, but mainstream German politicians are all liberal-left and of course pro-war. In liberal Germany, prison waits for anybody stepping beyond the red line. They imprisoned and amputated the legs of the brilliant and daring lawyer Horst Mahler for a gesture. However, the fresh wind of Trump’s populist revolution blows over Germany as well.

Not only does the far-right AfD call for peace, so does the far-left BSW! The German civil society association Kulturtreff held two rallies in Berlin and Frankfurt under the slogan «No vote for NATO vassals, immediate peace for Europe!». The protesters demanded immediate peace negotiations, an end to the war in the Ukraine, an end to arms supplies to the Ukrainian state, and the restoration of economic and political cooperation between Germany and Russia. Kulturtreff states that «the current main opposition party CDU/CSU wants as does the ruling left-liberal coalition for the war in Europe to continue. The leading political parties of Germany do not have a single new solution in their program». The speakers supported the point of view of US Vice President Vance at the Munich Conference, who pointed out that the political elite of Europe is deeply disconnected from the real interests of the European people.

In Munich, there was a big demo, organised by followers of Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek socialist. They are called DiEM25, and they also call for peace and friendship with Russia.

Bear in mind that all calls for peace are forbidden in Europe; if you look for “Germany peace demo” in Google it shows you rallies for climate, or a rally for migrants, or some rally against a local version of Donald Trump; but no peace demo will be shown, unless it is full of blue-and-yellow banners demanding more war. In the UK and Germany, you might get a visit from the local gestapo if you click a cautious *like* under an anti-war post in your social network. In Sweden, a minister explained why the people are not allowed to decide their NATO status: “Membership in NATO is too important to ask the people to approve of it.” A Swedish journalist wrote in the Facebook:

In Russia, the anti-Putin and pro-Western opposition, as run by Navalny and ilk, relocated abroad claiming hatred of war. But they couldn’t retain that pretence for long. At first, they supported Israel’s war against the Palestinian people, and this was important because some 70 per cent of Russian oppositionists who left Russia after February 2022 landed in Israel. Obviously, they considered themselves Jewish, and Israel recognised them as Jews. It may be true that not everyone who opposes Putin is a Jew, but to a great extent it was true and to a great extent Jews continue to finance anti-Putin organizations in Russia. And now, with the first sight of Trump’s international thaw and the possibility of terminating the war in the Ukraine, these emigres have collectively called for more war. This was the end of the anti-war movement in the Russian World, in the archipelago of Russian-speaking communities – it seems that Russia’s counter-elites will not be happy until they see the Russian army defeated. They dream of US Abrams tanks rolling through Red Square, with Putin executed like Saddam Hussein, but instead those Abrams tanks (30 or 31 delivered to Zelensky) burned in the fields of Novorossia, far away indeed from Moscow.

However, many people, including first of all the parents of Russian teenagers, were excited by Trump’s call for peace, as the war in the Ukraine was a big bloodletting for Russians and Ukrainians alike. Although Russia’s fighters are all well-paid volunteers, there is no doubt that the Russian people will be happy when this war is concluded.

For the Russian leadership, the most important goal was defined in the so-called “Putin’s Ultimatum” of December 2021 (I wrote about it at length here: To Make Sense of War). Putin’s draft treaty called for an immediate end to NATO’s drive Nach Osten, keeping all Western armies and weapons out of former USSR republics. Now it seems this goal will finally be obtained.

It seems that we are at the brink of a great sea change. President Donald Trump has already given us a basket of blessings. There is a song Jews sing at Passover: if He would give us only this, it would be enough, Dayeinu. It is perfectly suitable in this case. If Trump only saved us from World War III, it would be enough. If he only disclosed the dark secrets of USAID, it would be enough. But let’s not forget to thank him, even if it be just for a moment while we think of what we want next. Such as a drawback is his policy towards Palestine. Let’s hope that it will remain just silly talk.

The Atlantic Magazine gives us reason for some hope: it claimed Trump is building the most anti-Semitic cabinet in decades. It certainly has fewer Jews than the Biden’s cabinet, and less belligerence coming with fewer Jews.

March 3, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

German factories counting on return of Russian gas – Bloomberg

RT | March 1, 2025

Key German industrial leaders have expressed their desire to see Russian gas return to Europe once a resolution to the Ukraine conflict is found, Bloomberg has reported.

Chemical and manufacturing sector representatives argue that affordable energy is crucial for Germany’s economy to recover, the agency wrote on Friday.

European gas prices surged after the Ukraine conflict escalated in 2022. Pipeline gas imports from Russia mostly ceased due to sanctions and the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in 2022. Nevertheless, EU nations have still been buying record volumes of Russian LNG, the cost of which has nearly quadrupled in three years, according to Eurostat.

Christian Gunther, managing director of the Leuna chemical park, emphasized that bringing back Russian gas would be a logical step if peace is achieved. “We must ensure the damage caused by this conflict is repaired,” he told Bloomberg, adding that resuming deliveries “would be the logical consequence.”

In 2021, Russian pipeline gas accounted for 32% of the total demand of the EU and UK, while Germany relied on Russia for 55% of its consumption, according to the European Council and Statista. Since cutting ties with Russian energy, the EU has turned to expensive LNG imports, primarily from the US. The shift has driven natural gas prices on the continent to their highest levels in two years, prompting discussions in Brussels about price caps. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has warned that soaring energy costs could cripple the EU economy.

The EU’s latest sanctions package, introduced on Monday, tightens restrictions on Russian energy but stops short of banning LNG imports. Gunther earlier criticized Germany’s energy policy, pointing out the inconsistency of banning Russian pipeline gas while still importing LNG.

Bloomberg reported that Sven Schulze, the economy minister of German’s Saxony-Anhalt state, believes permanently excluding Russian gas “would be a mistake.”

US President Donald Trump has been urging Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky to negotiate a peace deal with Russia, warning that failure to do so could result in the loss of American support. On Friday, during a heated meeting at the Oval Office, Trump reportedly told Zelensky to leave the White House and return when he was ready to pursue peace.

Ukraine refused to extend its gas transit contract with Russia’s Gazprom beyond 2024, further reducing EU access to Russian pipeline gas. The only remaining supply flows through the TurkStream pipeline via Türkiye and Greece.

“We need peace to reopen pipelines, ensure supply security, and lower prices,” said Manuela Grieger, former chair of the workers union InfraLeuna, told Bloomberg. The EU has pledged to phase out Russian energy by 2027. Germany’s Economy Ministry insists that independence from Russian gas remains a priority for the country.

March 1, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

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