The primary upside of liberal democracy is very often alleged to be the peaceful transfer of power. This is such a towering load of fuckwaddery, it makes me want to shit upon the head of whoever came up with it.

If you are in a political system in which power can be transferred PeAcEfUlLY among political factions, you exist in a single-party political system, and the factions are only apparent.

When the uniparty cartel breaks down and actual politics re-emerge, the whole criminal justice system gets turned on opposition candidates. They try to shoot opposition candidates in the head. They turn domestic spy agencies loose on opposition candidates. And so on.

These tactics are how you can recognise real politics, as opposed to fake politics: The instrumentalisation of state security services or criminal justice apparatus or random telegram-actrivated crazy people against the opposition is real politics. Trying to kill enemies is real politics. There are game-theoretical reasons for this. If you take the high road of non-skullduggery in conditions of Realpolitik, you're not going to win. The entire fight around Trump was real politics. The struggle around AfD is also real politics. It's not real unless your future, your life, or at the very least your whole career are at stake. Everything else is fake.

(link below) This an overview of the Welt am Sonntag bombshell story, about the bizarre lobbying activities funded by the EU Commission, both within the EU itself, and also within (and without the knowledge of) EU member states.
eugyppius.com/p/the-european…

Many are discounting AfD showing as a disappointment or a disaster. You need to take long view, OK? AfD have the largest gain of all parties, including Die Linke. They are going to add over 50 seats in parliament, and this in a smaller Bundestag.

https://twitter.com/PeterSweden7/status/1893715689459810574

Realistically, their absolute ceiling for this round was 23%. We had a whole other round nationwide freaking out AgAInST tHE RiGHt, and unlike last year, AfD did not lose 30% of their support, they held steady throughout.

Angela Merkel has released a statement on her website (until now I did not even know she had one) denouncing yesterday's vote with the AfD:

"I believe it is wrong [that Friedrich Merz] longer feels bound by [his promise not to use AfD votes], and that on 29 January 2025 he thereby knowingly enabled a majorityvote in the German Bundestag with the AfD for the first time. Instead, it is imperative that all democratic parties work together across party lines, not as a tactical manoeuvre, but in good faith, with a measured tone and on the basis of applicable European law, to do everything possible to prevent terrible attacks in the future, as happened just before Christmas in Magdeburg and a few days ago in Aschaffenburg." Merkel has always refused to comment on current German politics; and Merz with the rest of CDU leadership have avoided any open break with Merkel-era policies, even while running campaigns that are a de facto repudiation of them. Now the break is clear and in the open.

(link below) the unhinged hysteria about relaxed censorship on American-controlled social media just continues unabated here in Europe. it is worrying and mystifying in equal measrues. eugyppius.com/p/leading-jour…

Fascinating report from Mitteldeutsche Zeitung about Taleb al-Abdulmohsen's colleagues impressions of him:

"The Staff Called Him ‘Dr Google’: Is the Magdeburg Attacker Really a Doctor? "Among staff at the Bernburg forensic psychiatric hospital, doubts ... have grown since the 50-year-old Saudi began work there in March 2020 ...

"‘We call him ‘Dr Google’,’ an employee tells MZ.
He got the nickname because he "had to look up every diagnosis on the internet."

(link below) This story is about a massive investigative journalism consortium/NGO called the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project. It has been largely (and secretly) funded & controlled by the U.S. State Department for years.
eugyppius.com/p/how-the-us-s…

(link in reply) This story is about Bairawies, a small village southweast of Wolfrathausen. A developer has leased a plot of land there, and wants to put a container facility on it to house 128 migrants. The population of Bairawies is 280 people.

eugyppius.com/p/local-green-…

How the German government collapsed and what will happen now

Many asked me for my thoughts on the end of the traffic light. Here are all the tiresome and depressing details:

eugyppius.com/p/how-the-germ… Contrary to what charlatans like Peter Sweden claim, this is not a new extension of the MAGA revolution. Scholz's government fell apart because of internal ideological contradictions, and because they ran out of money to spend on dem projects.

East Germany is not 'far right.' They're voting for right-leaning populist parties at basically the same rate as the French and the Italians. They're normal.

It's the West Germans who are the anomaly.

https://twitter.com/nykyt0sha/status/1830680258334310439

These theses about the German past are very enticing, I get it. Scratch a German and he must be a Nazi!
Super compelling for ret@rds whose historical vision stops at 1933. Newsflash: National Socialism was a thing for 12 years. It ended 79 years ago.

Since July, all plastic bottles sold in EU must have tethered caps – they remain attached after unsrewing and interfere obnoxiously with attempts to drink. This is to save the oceans, altho Europe contributes almost no plastic waste to the seas. The big source is Asia. Retrofitting bottle factories to manufacture the new caps is estimated to have cost millions of Euros. They also, ironically, tend to use somewhat more plastic. Packings experts/engineers have told the press multiple times that this will achieve nothing & merely annoy people.

Disorderly "refugees" turn Erfurt commuter rail line into a daily hell of physical assaults, threats & fights; police respond by offering special classes on "railway rules" and "German customs"

eugyppius.com/p/disorderly-r… Apparently not stabbing and spitting on train conductors is a peculiar central European cultural norm unknown to our guests from Syria, Afghanistan and Turkey.

Finally, in Germany anyway, we come to learn what was pandemic.

Lockdowns and other measures were not a rational response to dangerous virus; rather, a dangerous virus was socially & culturally constructed to justify the shiny new policy toy of lockdowns and other measures.

https://twitter.com/eugyppius1/status/1773728261807255600

Maybe there were a few weeks in March where FlaTTenInG tHe CuRvE and related idiocy were a genuine goal. Thereafter exaggerating the curve became the order of the day, to rationalise their insane restrictions.

RKI protocols reveal pandemic managers providing "fictitiously accurate" R-values and overstating Covid risk on the explicit directions of their political overseers in the Health Ministry

eugyppius.com/p/rki-protocol… The political fallout from the RKI document release continues. At issue are 2,500 pages of agendas and minutes from the daily meetings of the "covid crisis team" between January 2020 and April 2021.

eugyppius.com/p/massive-germ…

Witchcraft has long been hobby interest of mine, I read many trial documents and much academic literature too. In general response to various replies:

1) Witch-hunting in Europe is basically unknown before 1400; it reaches an apex in 17th c. and declines rapidly thereafter.

https://twitter.com/eugyppius1/status/1773065071591125324

2) The witches of these hunts are typically older widowed or single femael peasants who are first denounced by relatives or neighbours. Many of them seem to have been operating side business in divination, folk healing, etc.

In the latest victory against right-wing extremism, police officers pull a 16 year-old girl out of chemistry class and advise her to stop posting Smurf-themed AfD-friendly content to TikTok

eugyppius.com/p/in-the-lates… As I posted last month, Germany is in the midst of an unusual hysterical paroxysm over RiGhT-WiNG EXtReMisM. Cabinet ministers have announced plans to restrict the speech, travel and economic activity of those with inconvenient opinions.

eugyppius.com/p/germany-anno…

Bizarre hypervaccinator from Magdeburg receives 217 Covid jabs over 29 months, finally achieves antibody levels necessary to prevent infection

eugyppius.com/p/bizarre-hype… This story is making the rounds after a case study appeared in The Lancet on Monday. Some lunatic German allegedly got himself jabbed 217 times for unclear "personal reasons." So much about the story is bizarre and doesn't make any sense.

thelancet.com/journals/lanin…

I never tire of making this point.
Climate policy is a bizarre attempt to apply regional solutions to a claimed GlOBaL PrOBlEm, with the result that we merely move this ProBlEm around, destroying national economies while emissions and fossil fuel production increase undeterred

https://twitter.com/QuasLacrimas/status/1765046702430466278

Carbon taxes and regulatory restrictions merely cause emissions-intensive industries to decamp overseas, where they can emit even more intensely. Market forces, meanwhile, ensure that regional restrictions on fossil fuel consumption are almost perfectly offset abroad.

Authoritarian politics in postwar Europe, or: Why fascism is a bad way to describe what is happening in Germany

eugyppius.com/p/authoritaria… Probably the most common comment to this piece, is the remark that the authoritarian turn in German politics is in some way a re-manifestation of pre-1945 "fascism." I get why people say this but it's serious analytical error.

eugyppius.com/p/germany-anno…

All organisms, whether biological or political, must maintain effective borders between themselves and the external environment. The alternative is dying. Insofar as the liberal West prefers infinity migration to elementary border security, it is opting to kill itself. In 2020, contrary to many of their claims, our states proved they could in fact close the borders to stop a virus. And stopping migration would be vastly less logistically complex than housing, feeding and striving impotently to InTeGrAtE all the migrants.

After reading an incredible amount of material since Christmas, I have to come to some basic conclusions about this case:

1) The Ramseys hire lawyers in the hours after JonBenét's body is discovered, at which point all their statements become untextured and unhelpful. This why a rigid, disciplined focus on the early events before 1pm on 26 December is so helpful. You want to pay attention to what the Ramseys do and say then. Everything afterwards is publicity and only important insofar as studying changing narratives can be helpful.