Tea and Vitriol

 The victory of the Christian Union in Germany yesterday was hardly a surprise. It had been expected for months, ever since Socialist Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired his finance minister, Christian Lindner of the Free Democratic Party, which effectively dissolved the Coalition consisting of the Socialists, the Greens and the FDP. That coalition had always been on shaky ground from its inception. It took Scholz two months to piece it together in 2021, and this so-called Ample Coalition lost steam from its very beginning. No single party in Germany can win an absolute majority, so the leader of the party with the largest number of votes becomes chancellor and has to piece together a working government by inviting other parties to work with him. That means concessions have to be made with other parties, whose agendas might be radically different from the winning party, usually in the form of ministerial posts. And that means that the various ministers usually work against the common good...

Conflicts are never solved of their own accord.  They are usually settled by the stronger powers and their settlements are imposed on the smaller or weaker powers. That is the norm in history, and it will be no different regarding settling the war between Ukraine and Russia. US President Donald Trump called Russian President Vladimir Putin last week to begin "negotiations" regarding a peace settlement for Russia's war against Ukraine. Neither the European Union nor Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy were informed beforehand. Neither was the United Kingdom. So much for the much touted (by the UK, anyway) "Special Relationship" between the US and they. They were informed of the phone call after the fact and erupted with righteous indignation. They all expected to be part of the so-called "peace process" and have seats at the negotiating table. They were all bypassed and were not invited. The negotiations began this week in Saudi Arabia, which is...

  It looks like Canada's prime minister, pretty boy Justin Trudeau, is having a hissy fit.  The poster boy for woke progressive liberalism's failures, he was mocked by US President Trump, who suggested that he could become "governor" when Canada became the 51st state! Despite superficial outward appearances and similarities, Canada IS very different from the United States, politically, socially and economically. Those facts have been overlooked by President Trump, and despite his bombastic rhetoric on the subject, Canada would simply not fit in well with the United States as a constituent part. The political structure of Canada resembles the European parliamentary models, and it would be a complicated procedure to revamp them to fit the US's internal political structure. There are also the problems of French-speaking Quebec and the autonomous native Canadian territories to consider. President Trump's euphoria over his re-election perhaps caused him to ignore t...

The Monroe County Democratic Committee has endorsed Rochester mayor Mahweak Evans' bid for re-election. I am notably underwhelmed. As an incumbent, Mahweak would have always been the committee's first choice, unless there was an outstanding local Democratic politician with a huge support base to pit against him. There is none. True, City Council Vice President Crazy Mary Lupien already threw her hat into the ring a month ago, but her woke progressive liberal rants can be viewed more as comedy relief than a serious platform upon which to run for mayor. Crazy Mary claims that Mahweak hasn't done much during his four years as mayor. That's true enough, but then, neither has she, other than providing Rochester with an endless source of hilarity regarding her woke progressive antics and rants. She won't win a primary, if her campaign lasts that long. Mahweak claims that he will remain focused violence, youth outreach, housing and economics. Still? The third candidate, Sh...

  Woke progressive liberals the world over had a hissy fit when Donald Trump won a second, non-consecutive term as President of the United States.  It was not because he is a megalomaniacal, crude, rude and abrasive loudmouth. President Trump IS all of those things, but he is first and foremost an American, and proud of it. That's what bothers our erstwhile friends and foes alike. President Trump has campaigned on promoting a protectionist "America First" policy, which is a slap in the face of the globalists who were hoping for a continuation of the political, social and economic perversion of Bidenism under Sloppy Joe's brainless second banana, Kamelhead Harris. They were counting on the US piggy bank to be forever open for them upon demand, never mind the disastrous effects such "charity" was having on the American economy. Trump's "second coming" spelled an end to that, much to their displeasure and to that of well-meaning but sadly ignorant...

Every year on February 2 in America, Americans worship marmots. Marmots are called groundhogs or woodchucks here. They are supposedly imbued with the mystical ability to predict an early end to winter. If a groundhog sees its shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter. If not, winter ends sooner. The news media makes much ado about this bit of folklore, posting film crews outside of various groundhog's lairs, trying to lure them out of hibernation to record whether or not they see their shadows. This act of animal abuse has made several American marmots famous, like Punxsutawney Phil of Pennsylvania. Outside of providing Americans with a bit of fun during the winter, whether or not a groundhog sees its shadow has no effect on the weather whatsoever. Most thinking people don't take it seriously. Some Americans, however, DO believe in the efficacy of the groundhogs' predictions. It's nice to see that those Americans believe in something, especially after the woke prog...