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According to the latest survey conducted for RTL and NTV, the Alternative for Deutschland (AfD)  party not only recorded record support, but for the first time took the lead, ahead of the Christian Democrats coalition CDU/CSU by 1 percentage point.

Although almost two months have passed since the elections in Germany, coalition talks between the CDU/CSU and the SPD are  still ongoing, which are to jointly form a new government. Key issues include migration policy, taxes, pensions and energy policy. Initially, it was assumed that the new government would be formed before Easter, now the vote on the election of Friedrich Marz as the new chancellor is scheduled for early May. Meanwhile, the CDU/CSU and the SDP, which are to rule, are clearly losing support in the polls, while the AfD is gaining.

Growing support for the AfD  has been observed since the elections, which took place on February 23. In the latest survey, the far-right party scored 26%, which allowed it to surpass the CDU/CSU  (25%). Compared to the election results of February 23, AFD gained 5.2 percentage points, and the Christian Democrats lost 3.5 points.

If the election were held now, the SPD  party would be in third place, which is to form a new government with the CDU/CSU. 15% of respondents would vote for it, while in the February elections the SPD received 16.4%. This means that the parties that are to create a new cabinet  lost a total of 4.9 percentage points compared to the election results before they even started to rule.

 The next places were the Greens with a result of 11% (11.6% in the elections), the Left with a result of 9% (8.8% in the elections), the FDP (4%) and BSW (4%).

RLT and NTV also published the results of another study on the motives for voting for specific parties  in the February elections. Special attention was paid to the voters of the AfD. 35% of them indicated that they voted for the AfD because of the convergence of their views with those proclaimed by the party. 19% admitted, however, that their main motivation was their dislike of the entire political system. As many as 40% indicated that they voted for the AfD in protest against other parties. 24% cited dissatisfaction with the SPD, Greens and FDP government as the main reason, 15% indicated objections to the leader of the CDU and the candidate for chancellor, Friedrich Merz.

AutoMod deleted this post from yesterday because it linked to the cartoon instead of uploaded it as a picture.

So.

Here.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin will call for DNC officials’ neutrality to be codified in the party’s official rules and bylaws, two Democratic sources tell CNN. Martin has already been telling DNC members of his plans and will explain more in a call with members Thursday afternoon.

. . . “No DNC officer should ever attempt to influence the outcome of a primary election, whether on behalf of an incumbent or a challenger,” Martin told reporters on a call Thursday. “Voters should decide who our primary nominees are, not DNC leadership.”

The DNC’s Rules & Bylaws committee is expected to vote on Martin’s proposal next month in a virtual meeting. If the committee approves the proposal it will advance to a full vote of the DNC membership in August.

The push for the new rule comes days after Hogg, who beat out a crowded field to become one of three DNC at-large vice chairs in February, announced his plan to help primary incumbent Democrats in safe districts through his group Leaders We Deserve. The organization plans to spend a total of $20 million in next year’s midterms supporting young people running for office.

Hogg stressed that his effort would not target Democrats in competitive districts or use any DNC resources, including voter files or donor lists. He told CNN in an interview last week that he would not endorse in the presidential primaries if he is still a DNC leader.

“I don’t take it personally,” Hogg said of the criticism of his primary challenge. “There’s a difference in strategy here, and the way that we think things need to be done.”

Turner knelt in prayer and laid a wreath at the entrance of the museum in support of its mission, which incurred President Donald Trump’s criticism alongside other Smithsonian Institution sites. In a March 27 executive order, Trump alleged that Smithsonian exhibits had disparaged the nation’s history via a “divisive, race-centered ideology.”

cross-posted from: https://metawire.eu/post/46760

Nichts Neues im Ukraine-Zirkus

Die Galerie des Monats April

https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-ready-pay-30-50-billion-us-weapons-zelenskyy-2025-4

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/61920691

The first impression America gave me was gentle carelessness. We were driving down from Canada to visit family friends in Texas sometime in the mid- to late 1980s, and a young border patrol agent at a booth, crouched over a newspaper, leaning back in his chair, carelessly waved my family’s station wagon across without looking up. You didn’t even need a passport to enter the United States until I was 33.

You need clear eyes at the border today. Europe and Canada have issued travel advisories after a series of arbitrary detentions, deportations to foreign jails without due process and hundreds of valid visas pulled or voided amid a sense of general impunity. While I have crossed the border a hundred times at least, sometimes once a month when I lived there, I cannot say when I will see America again, and I am quite sure I will never return to the country I once visited.

The America I knew, the America I loved, has closed.

And so I find myself like a man who has been admiring bubbles floating in the air, trying to recall their shape and swerve and shine after they’ve popped.

America was a country of bubbles. I loved it as one loves anything that is both real and fantastical.

Donald Trump has blown himself into a bubble of gilded ceilings, ersatz Roman murals, sycophants on tap and midnight rants of imperial conquest on personally owned social media networks. He is only one story. America was millions of bubbles. For some reason, I find myself remembering Tom Waits in a junkyard making Bone Machine, turning rusted fenders and tossed-out dry cleaners and cracked sheet metal into a scrap marimba of his own invention. Even its dumps could give birth to magic.

Golf course palaces and wrecking-lot percussion: twin American truths.

MORE AT: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/apr/20/american-dream-trump-canada