Monday, June 19, 2017

German News, Monday Morning

French election:  What you an generally take home about the French legislative election results is that the mass of the general public has voted in an unusual pattern.  The center-left and center-right parties which have been the major player of French politics since WW II?  Mostly gone now....wiped out.  Le Pen and her National Front?  They were lucky to take ten seats.  Macron?  He needed 289 seats to run his agenda....but he ended with a minimum of 355, and it may go as high as 400 seats.  You get five full years of Macron-hype and whatever it brings.  One very curious part of this story.....only one out of every three people registered....voted in this election.  Lowest turn-out in decades.  Reporters only say that people were tired of endless campaigns.

Green Party weekend meeting concludes:  Generally, you get three things out of the meeting. First, a lot of hype and political ax-sharpening was made on environmental issues for this election period.  They went back to their core of twenty years ago and this weekend was dominated by this message.  Second, it appears very unlikely that the Greens will allow themselves to be a partner of the CDU in a coalition government.  All this effort over the past five years to leave doors open and hope one day to have a CDU-Green Party coalition?  Just a dream.  Third and final.....this weekend meeting was highly hyped by the news media but you just don't see that translating over to more votes.  They are likely sitting on a stagnant political hill with no real view of anything.

Civil case starts up:  For months and months, there's been a court case brewing over several murders and some NSU-right-wing-Nazi-extremist group (mostly down to one single woman).  A lot of evidence has been presented to show the government could have stepped in with competent people and figured out the plans of this small group.  So the families of the murdered folks....have decided to now sue the government.  Very rare to see this and it's a big question-mark if they can get the court to agree on this level of incompetence.  One might note.....the court case against the remaining gal?  It's now on the 4th year and no is sure about how the judges might conclude this case.

Cost of G20 Meeting:  At least 32 million Euro being spent by the German government on security and support for the weekend meeting in Hamburg.  Lot of security and cops in the mix.  Massive protests expected.

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