Reader alert: we have embedded a video below that shows ballot shredding in the German election just passed, at the end of the opening section, It’s Not Who Votes That Counts, But Who Counts the Votes. The clip was briefly up on Twitter before all copies were taken down. We managed to download it before that happened.
To repeat our warning below: it is not clear that what is shown was the destruction of actual mailed in ballots, as opposed to a fabrication. However, the rapid purge suggests authenticity. It would otherwise be in the authorities’ interest to leave the video up, demonize it as false, and further broadcast that the clip demonstrates that efforts to discredit election integrity are fake news. UPDATE: There are debunkings of this video, but its speedy suppression looks unduly defensive. Recall that there are past cases, famously in the US with the career-end of Dan Rather, where fabricated documents served successfully to also discredit the underlying story…when there was other evidence suggesting it was bona fide.
So apologies for over-reacting to a questionable media handling in Germany. One would think that in this era of narrative control that governments would be better at it.
As we explain in more detail, there was certainly motive for chicanery. Both the much-demonized “populist right wing” AfD and the “populist left wing” BSW both fell just short of thresholds which would have given each a great deal more clout and greatly changed German political dynamics.
It’s Not Who Votes That Counts, But Who Counts the Votes
The German election is proving to have been riddled with irregularities, seemingly at the behest of the Uniparty, comprising of the CDU (which together with its sister party the CSU is known by the moniker: The Union) and the SPD, the old Communist party of West Germany in sensible shoes.
These are the same, tired parties that have led Germany from being a well-run, prosperous pre-unification country, that was the backbone of the EU, into becoming a faltering state. They are definitely not the coalition that Germany needs to restore German prosperity. The people wanted change, but it doesn’t look like they’ll get it. Instead they’ll have a government that is stridently advocating for an increasing involvement in the war in Ukraine.
In order to create this grand war coalition, certain things needed to be accomplished. The most important was to deny representation in the Bundestag by the BSW. The reason is that if the BSW had reached 5% of the vote they would be entitled to become part of the coalition because the 20+ seats they’d win would deny the Uniparty the seats it needed to rule alone. Given that the Bavarian CSU refused to serve in a coalition with the Greens, the BSW would be the only possible coalition partner. This would mean that there would be an anti-war faction in the government, which the ruling elites would find intolerable; particularly, as the BSW keep asking awkward questions such as these:
Translation:
We asked the Federal Government:
- Is it true that Bundeswehr soldiers advised the Ukrainian government in Kiev without the knowledge of the German government, as revealed by research by “Business Insider”?
- a) Since when has the Federal Government been aware of the stay of German soldiers in Kiev, according to information from Business Insider?
- b) To what extent was Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz involved in the information and coordination process of the stay and if not, which bodies coordinated the stay of German soldiers in and to Kyiv?
- c) Was a corresponding request made by the NSATU staff to the Federal Ministry of Defence to deploy Bundeswehr soldiers in Kiev?
- d) How many Bundeswehr soldiers took part in this mission in Kyiv?
- e) As of the deadline of this inquiry, are there still members of the Bundeswehr in Ukraine as part of the NSATU or another mission to support Ukraine?
- f) How many soldiers from other NATO countries took part in the mission?
- g) How many of these soldiers are still on site?
- Who gave the instructions to the German military representative in NATO headquarters in Mons, to Brigadier General Gerhard Klaffus, to stop the presence of German soldiers in Kiev?
- a) When exactly was this decided within the Federal Government?
- b) For what reasons did the German soldiers withdraw from this NSATU mission?
3) Were with the German soldiers staying in the country any employees of German arms companies on site (if yes, please break down by period, company and activity)?
4) Did the Bundeswehr soldiers advise the Ukrainian army on its warfare and the selection of possible war targets on the ground, If so, to what extent?
5) Did soldiers from other countries who participated in the NSATU mission take on these tasks?
6) How does the Federal Government explain that the stay of the Bundeswehr soldiers, as the “Business Insider” research suggests, took place without the knowledge of the Federal Government, in particular on the part of Defense Minister Boris Pistorius and Chancellor Olaf Scholz?
One way of ensuring that BSW would fail at the ballot box was simply to not allow registered voters, who were living overseas and who were legally entitled to vote, but hadn’t been exposed to the relentless propaganda in the German MSM, the opportunity to express their choice by not giving them any ballot papers. This was confirmed by the German Ambassador to the UK:
Note: Wahlunterlagen = Ballot Papers.
And this was further confirmed by BSW politician, Fabio De Masi. Note, Karlsruhe is the home of the Federal Constitutional Court.
Something similar happened in Moldova where the unpopular (within the country) EU-phile President’s (Maia Sandhu’s) re-election was in doubt because of potentially hostile votes coming from the significant Moldovan diaspora living in Russia. In that instance they simply restricted the number of ballot papers sent to Russia and reduced the number of polling stations (from 20 to only 2), making it difficult to cast a vote.
In Germany, there are instances under investigation where BSW votes appear to have been gifted to other parties. For example, a virtually unknown party in Aachen, “Alliance for Germany” (Bundnis Deutschland) somehow received 7.24% of the votes, while the BSW (Alliance Sarah Wagenknecht) received 0%. The scandal came to light because the people who had voted for the BSW started asking what had happened to their vote.
And this was by no means an outlier. In Brecht, the BSW also received 0% with the Bundnis Deutschland receiving 8.3% of the vote. Similar discrepancies were also found in Delmenhorst, Heidelberg, Rostock and Berlin, according to the Frankfurter Rundschau.
And the German media was on message, as evidenced by Fabio De Masi when he mentioned fake polls, by implying they had access to the election data before the polls were even closed and counting had barely got started – note the timing of the tweet – the polls closed at 6pm.
The BSW weren’t the only potential victims of these electoral irregularities. The AfD was also targeted. If they had 152 seats (in other words just 6 extra), they would have 25% of the seats and thereby obtained specific parliamentary minority rights. These include the right to set up a committee of inquiry and the right to bring an action for violation of the principle of subsidiarity. They already have enough votes to block changes to the constitution such as changes to the Debt Brake, which is a very contentious issue in Germany given their well-deserved reputation for fiscal rectitude.
Aside from deep state actions, such as skewed exit polls, there was a barrage of Anti-AfD and Anti-BSW MSM propaganda leading to activists (particularly from among Die Linke supporters, who now appear to exist only to oppose the AfD) finding reasons to invalidate ballots. One example is where the party has not named an individual candidate for a seat, so voters can only vote for the party. Although this is legal (to leave an entry blank), it is being used by poll counters as an excuse to invalid them. Here is one such instance:
Even more disturbingly, an alternative site reported that postal workers were ‘pre-screening’ ballots in order to destroy AfD votes. The video that accompanied that piece, showing the actual destruction of ballots, was disappeared from the Internet shortly afterwards. But we have a copy!
It is not clear that what is shown was the destruction of actual mailed in ballots, as opposed to a fabrication. However, the rapid purge suggests authenticity. It would otherwise be in the authorities’ interest to leave the video up, demonize it as false, and further broadcast that the clip demonstrates that efforts to discredit election integrity are fake news.
Romania Is Giving Up on Democracy
A Demonstration of Support Took Place in Bucharest as Georgescu Is Finally Allowed to Submit His Candidacy: with pro-Georgescu protestors chanting “Ursula, don’t forget, you don’t own Romania.” However, according to the Financial Times, the “Romanian authorities intend to prevent Georgescu from participating in the Presidential elections in May”, because they intend to bring a criminal prosecution against him for “attempting to subvert the constitutional order with the help of fascist groups.” The FT went on to say: “The Russian foreign intelligence agency SVR said on Tuesday that a Romanian criminal probe, launched against Georgescu last week, was part of Europe’s ‘war on anti-establishment leaders who are open supporters of US President Donald Trump’.
STOP PRESS: Georgescu has just been banned from competing in the election
You can read more in our post earlier today, Authorities Reject Georgescu’s Presidential Candidacy, Sparking Violence In Bucharest, or on Georgescu’s official X page or
The British Government Wants To Read Your Mail
The UK has demanded that Apple hands over a decryption key for their Advanced Data Protection (ADP) service. This service provides end to end encryption of Apple users’ mail. As the Guardian reported: “The submission also indicates that Apple would refuse to cooperate with a request, saying the company would ‘never build a backdoor’ and would rather withdraw critical safety features from the UK market”. Which it subsequently did.
However, as the Guardian also pointed out: “…the submission also points out that the IPA allows the UK government to impose requirements on companies based in other countries that apply to users globally.” From that it doesn’t appear that Apple’s removal of the ADP from UK users only will fulfill the whole of the request under the IPA.
The Investigatory Powers Act (IPA), dubbed by the press as a “Snooper’s Charter”, was rammed through Parliament by David Cameron, despite stiff opposition (and a petition signed by over 200,000 voters) as being vital to Britain’s national security. Under its provisions, the UK government can demand that user data from anywhere in the world be handed over, en clair, to the UK government upon request and a failure to do so would incur huge penalties (5% of annual turnover or £10 million, whichever is the greater). An assessment of the Act and its sweeping powers can be found here. The powers given to the Government include the following, on a worldwide basis:
- Bulk Data Collection: Allows agencies to collect large volumes of data (like internet history and phone records) to look for suspicious activity.
- Internet Connection Records (ICRs): Internet Service Providers (ISPs) must store a year’s worth of customers’ internet connection data (such as site visits).
- Interception of Communications: Agencies (e.g., MI5, MI6, GCHQ) can intercept emails, phone calls, and messages.
- Equipment Interference (Hacking): Authorities can hack into devices (computers, phones, etc.) to gather information.
- Bulk Personal Datasets (BPDs): Agencies can maintain large databases of personal information, which may include data on innocent individuals for intelligence purposes.
- Targeted Surveillance: Covers covert surveillance of individuals, including monitoring communications, with judicial approval.
It will be interesting to see if (a) Apple is penalized for leaking that the request had been made (it is an offense under the act to disclose that a request had been made) and (b) whether the Starmer Government insists on getting access to all communications throughout the world.
Why Western Politicians Believe the Ukraine War Can Still Be Won
It works like this: The Kyiv Independent has its bills paid by USAID and the Canadian Government. The US State Department/CIA/Pentagon/Victoria Nuland supply copy to the Kyiv Independent, who feel obliged to print it:
The News Editor, Chris York, is British and previously worked for the Huffington Post.
This is picked up and copied almost word for word by the European Press (note the curiously precise number of 2,030 killed – how on earth did the Ukrainian military count them, considering most of the action took place at night?):
Then the US Press copied and pasted it:
And Western Politicians, or their aides, only read Western Media, or if they’re particularly diligent they might turn to the independent Ukrainian Press for conformation; the Kyiv Independent is always a good choice.
The information they supplied was obviously suspect, which you can confirm for yourself by watching this video that shows in great detail exactly what happened on the battlefield that day.
The reason for the sudden flurry of press activity full of dubious information was, as you might expect, a distraction because on that very day they released the Ukrainian casualty figures and they were horrendous – over 900,000 losses (killed or gravely injured and unable to return to the battlefield) – this is confirmed in the video. These figures belie the belief in the West that the Ukrainian army is the largest in Europe.
It was also the day when the West demanded that the mobilization age for Ukrainian conscripts be lowered to 18 from 25. That would destroy the nation’s youth and the country’s future, especially given the minimal training the new recruits are subject to, leading to inevitable high losses. There was also more information being brought to light by military channels on the Oreshnik strike, the new alternative to a nuclear weapon against which the West has no defense.
But why would Western media outlets carry the exact same message, right down to the same wording (the above headlines were just a snapshot; other media outlets were just as repetitive in wording in their coverage of the story)?
In the UK that question is easily answered. There is an actual censorship committee, called the Defence and Security Media Advisory Committee (DSMA). This committee sends out ‘Advisories’ (i.e take down notices) to MSM outlets who are carrying material that may have a negative impact on Britain. Its mission statement reads as follows:
The aim of the DSMA-notice system is to prevent inadvertent public disclosure of information that would compromise UK military and intelligence operations and methods; or put at risk the safety of those involved in such operations; or lead to attacks that would damage the critical national infrastructure and/or endanger lives.
A definition that could be (and is) used to mean almost any topic, including using police intimidation to protect politicians from criticism or to deny voters information on how their tax pounds were being spent, even though, as the police themselves admitted, the people being harassed had actually broken no laws.
This committee has morphed from its original remit, of scanning the news outlets and demanding that certain material is removed after the event, into an organization that dictates exactly what the media can carry before it goes to press. The committee, which includes both members of the media and operatives in the security services, has a weekly meeting where they decide what stories are going to be allowed going forward and what the narrative is.
The fore-runner of the DSMA, was the D notice, which allowed the government to impose censorship and even close newspapers down and was supposed to have been dropped after WW2 but never was. Back in 1942, when the D notice was introduced, there was a vigorous debate on censorship, where Michael Foot, the then editor of the Evening Standard (the leading afternoon Newspaper in the UK) and arguably the best Labour Prime Minister we never had, gave an impassioned speech defending freedom, possibly one of his finest. You can view the debate here. It is worth watching to see how freedoms were being called on to be protected by people of principle from all sides of the political spectrum, even at the height of a World War. Something that appears seemingly impossible these days.
Europe Wants a War
From the start of the Ukraine SMO, Poland was the most vociferous in calling for the breakup of Russia into regions (shown below) that would each be magnanimously controlled by an EU country “for the benefit of the citizens of that region.” The Poles reiterated their demand during the ‘Peace Conference” in Switzerland, to which Russia was not invited. In fact, at that conference, they went further by calling for Russia to be broken up into 200 separate states. This sentiment was supported recently by Kaja Kallas who recently said that breaking Russia into smaller nations would not be a bad thing.
This was supposed to be the golden ticket to rescue the increasingly moribund economies of the European Nations. It was the perfect plan; the Ukrainians would do the fighting and the US would provide the military muscle when needed. All the Europeans had to do was impose stringent sanctions to collapse the Russian economy; plus, supplying arms and training. But now, with the Trump administration proving to be tepid towards European Security and the Ukraine military increasingly faltering, an air of desperation has crept in, leading to last weekend’s hastily convened security conference in London. Details of exactly what was discussed are under wraps but Keir Starmer ended the conference with the following ‘Coalition of the Willing’ speech outlining the steps Europe will take going forward.
These steps originally included a European “reassurance” force to patrol a ceasefire, but after realizing that 40,000 troops were hardly likely to stop Russia’s million-man army, they settled for Skyshield, which is just a no-fly zone (something that has been called for repeatedly over the course of the SMO). In this scenario, 120 NATO aircraft would protect vital installations against Russian missile attacks.
Their reasoning behind their proposal was dependent on two things: the first was that Russian aircraft have been, since the start of the SMO, wary about flying over Western Ukraine (which was true when Ukraine had a robust, Russian made, Air Defense system, but it is no longer the case now that the majority of the system has been destroyed) and secondly if the plan goes wrong, with NATO jets being shot down, which will almost certainly happen, then the Europeans imagine the US would step in under Article 5. However, Ukraine is not in NATO and Article 5 obligations do not extend to NATO members gong on safari outside their borders (see Article 6). And on top of that, Article 5 does not obligate any NATO member to step up but merely to “assist…as it deems necessary.” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has already made clear the US deems that sort of assistance to be unnecessary.
On top of that, even way back in 2017, Donald Trump was lukewarm about a commitment to article 5 and in any event he has recently said that he won’t come to the aid of any European country that hasn’t committed 5% of its GDP to defense. Something that they aren’t able to do for at least a decade, according to the Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz.
Given the realities on the ground, why do the Europeans insist that there is still a very good chance, that with their help, Russia could be beaten by Ukraine – even to the extent that European nations have been called on to reduce social spending, such as pensions, to support the war effort.
To answer that question, it is worth listening to the voice of the British Establishment, in the form of Malcolm Rifkind, a Tory Grandee who held the Foreign and Defense portfolios in the Thatcher and Major administrations. He is also a Distinguished fellow at RUSI (The Royal United Services Institute, a military and security thinktank, first set up by Lord Wellington of Waterloo fame), a member of the Eminent Persons Panel of the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) and the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, which oversees the work of the various intelligence agencies like MI6. In other words, he is plugged in at the very highest level in the security establishment. Here is how he sees the prospects for Ukraine and how he envisages a successful Western European involvement there. Essentially, what he said was that Ukraine has the largest and most battle-hardened army in Europe; so, with Europe’s help they can’t fail to win – see the intro on the video.
Meanwhile: German companies are praying for an end to the war so they can get their Russian gas back. As Bloomberg admits, “Relatively cheap energy resources from the Russian Federation were the basis for the competitiveness of German manufacturers, who are now incurring colossal losses and are forced to close factories, laying off thousands of workers.” Now they tell us.
Audi Has Closed Its Brussels Factory with a loss of 3,000 jobs. European carmakers are failing to compete in electric vehicles.
Britons Need Another Oliver Cromwell (But Without the Regicide)
The irony is that Cromwell was played here (brilliantly) by Richard Harris: who is Irish. For those who are not history buffs: Oliver Cromwell created the New Model Army and led it to victory in the civil war. After the war he had King Charles beheaded and he dissolved Parliament. He also (re-) conquered Ireland.
US Involvement in The Ukraine Goes Back A Long Way
Immediately after World War 2, the fledgling CIA started arming, training and financing Neo- Nazis (including ex-Waffen SS) led by Stephan Bandera in Western Ukraine in order to destabilize the USSR. As this 1950s Soviet era cartoon shows – the signs on the bags say (top one): ‘For Spying’ and on the other it says: ‘For Sabotage’.
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We here in SC are glad there’s a pond. As for Article 5, surely making war on Russia for the benefit of a non NATO country would not trigger a “defensive” alliance. Of course we did receive some NATO help in our attack on Afghanistan but that’s on them. Trump could clear all this up by withdrawing from NATO. Many of us here wish he would.
it’s pretty clear that Europe can’t defend itself and most European countries destroyed its inter-class, patriotic social contract.
No America kid should die for such a cause. That would be a relatively uncontroversial statement until the Democratic Party over the past 15 years graduated en masse from the Lindsay Graham School of Chickenhawks.
There is nothing that europe needs to defend itself from except itself its warmongering neoliberal politicians want money making war , Russia will never attack europe it never has , other than to defend itself , usually from Germany.
“Coalition of the willing.” Must be desperate times to quote Dubya.
Immediately after World War 2, the fledgling CIA started arming, training and financing Neo- Nazis (including ex-Waffen SS) led by Stephan Bandera in Western Ukraine in order to destabilize the USSR.
You’re off script, Russia’s “invasion” of Ukraine was “unprovoked” and reflects Russia’s need to expand their diminutive geographical status.
The EU + UK is the current “Sick Man of Europe” and from my vantage point there’s no cure until reality smacks the EU and national misleaderships much, much harder.
OIFVet: Around and after Brexit, even though the English (and it’s all about the English) made a mess of negotiations, there was considerable speculation that the English wanted out of the EU so that they could cause the EU even more problems.
Now we see the English elites, who have been entrenched in their fiefdoms since the middle ages, letting the country slide into an economic / climate swamp, even as they treat the rest of Europe to their delusions of empire.
What could possibly go wrong?
And my guess is that Northern Europe and the U.K. are sicker Sick Men than Southern Europe. I tend to doubt that England, Germany, the Netherlands, or even France as they are currently constituted can survive neoliberalism. Yet they have no way out of neoliberalism.
DJG, the irony of two Chicago Northerners suddenly extoling the relatively more virtuous qualities of Southerners and Southern living is delicious :) Yes, I do find the EU South to be relatively more unencumbered by the dogma and conceit that ooze out of the North.
Plus, the climate and the food are far better down here . Let’s hope that we can civilize those troublesome Northern barbarians.
in my culinary experimentations, i have only cooked 2 english foods(lancashire hotpot, and toad in a hole) and 1 german(saurbraten)…(all of this with homegrown lamb parts).
but ive “been to” persia, levant, morocco, italy, greece, france(of course), albania(!), macedonia, spain….
i do make what i call “Hoppin John” with black eyed peas and saurkraut and polska keilbasa on new years for the last 35 years or so(so ya get yer BE peas(luck) and cabbage(money) in one go…)
well, and those deer and mushroom handpies/pasties are decidedly UK,lol.
but no…generally, the food is better from the southern side of europe.
I will add Mexico, the Caribbean, Portugal, Turkey, Indian and Thai to the list :)
The Upper Peninsula of Michigan is pasty land because it was a mining area back in the day. I had only one good pasty. The hash part was nearly always very good but crusts too doughy. I did get one with a great crust and good innards. And in Houghton, where the copper mines had been.
But the Brits have clotted cream! That will make even sawdust taste good.
Michigan pasties? That has had to have come from the Cornish miners in this region bringing along the idea of a Cornish pasty. I have several Cornish miners going to the Michigan region in the 19th century in my family but never considered that of course they would be bringing along the recipe for the Cornish pasty. They did the same here-
https://australianfoodtimeline.com.au/cornish-pasty/
Reality is a concept so obscure to the Eurocrats, that if it did take material form and smack them in as hard as possible, the orgasmic thrill will be so great that there will be a unison cry of, “Weals! More weals! I demand more weals!!”, as they collapse in the throes of erotic climax because that’s all the EU has become: a perverse pain machine taking it and passing it on via a good kicking and a taste of the lash to an entrapped population that aren’t even allowed a free vote in the hope of finding kinder masters
So Rifkind says that Ukraine has the largest most battle hardened army in Europe. Other sources say it is the most battered army and chronically short of men. Who did you say was this Rifkind? A Grandee? We must trust in grandees, don’t we?
Given the performance of the Ukrainian army/defense-industrial complex versus……Ukraine should have headed west.
(hypothetically as an academic exercise, without the US involved) Ukraine would have conquered all of paleo-Galicia that is Polish territory—even if Poland had help from all of Western Europe.
Western Europe is in no shape to defend itself and if hypothetically WW3 broke out tomorrow with “Put-ler”, the USA would be doing 99% of the heavy lifting.
Confirming, in a sideways fashion, that the EU does not consider Russia a part of Europe, given that the RU military is larger and at least equally hardened.
Which explains the neoColonial mindset of wanting to divvy Russia up amongst themselves.
Great Power politics is back. But just WHO the “Great Powers” are in the 21st Century might be a bit on the To Be Determined side…
Rifkind is a master of irony who’s carefully counted the dead, ‘cos how much more battle hardened can an army get than dead?
Rifkind was the political head of all of the security services; MI5, MI6, GCHQ, the whole nine yards. Of all people he should know what the real situation is.
So many Ukrainian men are not actually in Ukraine they are scattered around europe sitting the war out as refugees with no intention of returning to be cannon fodder for Zelensky ,there is no chance whatsoever that any europeans are going to be called up by their respective governments to fight Russia and perhaps die in Russia or Ukraine whilst Ukrainians sit at home in their refugee status accomodation watching it play out on tv
re: Germany vs. Israel criticism
It might fit:
As the law, normative powers and as “setting an example” are concerned it´s rather huge:
German NACHDENKSEITEN reported today that the Ministry of Labor fired an employee – employed by the state (Beamte) – who usually you cannot fire for any reason just like that – over Tweets describing Israel as an Apartheid State.
If you need final proof of authoritarian rule in the interior structures here you have it. So it´s not just student protesters who are being targeted.
The twist is this:
Apparently her critical views were well known to her colleagues (no surprise) and she had no problem.
It was only after German racist tabloid BILD published a typical German third-class smear piece and in fact called the Ministry that the swift firing took place. So obviously it came from above.
(it was not disimiliar to BERLINER ZEITUNG who published ill-informed hit pieces on Corbyn and Albanese respectively.)
(machine-translation of course the graphics and document covers are in German)
Ministry of Labor fires employee after BILD smear campaign for criticizing Israel
by Florian Warweg
https://archive.is/3ayPv
preface (it shows you how benign the state of criticism is we are talking about. 99% of NC commenters would probably rot in German prison with their views):
“After a massive smear campaign by the BILD newspaper, the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (BMAS) under Hubertus Heil (SPD) dismissed the consultant Melanie Schweizer without notice last Friday and also revoked her civil servant status. BMAS itself admits that the measure was only initiated after receiving the press inquiry from the Springer newspaper. Against this background, the NachDenkSeiten wanted to know how the ministry, also in the spirit of freedom of expression, justified the dismissal of an employee in response to a smear campaign by BILD and with reference to statements in the social media that referred to apartheid structures in Israel and the alleged genocidal actions in Gaza. Accusations that coincide with the assessments of renowned international human rights organizations and the International Court of Justice in The Hague.”
As far as I can see, the German ballot shredding video is a fake. Has been circulating since a few days before the election. Details don’t look quite right. If it was real the AfD would have kicked up a stink.
I watched 1 minute.
And I wonder why NC took this seriously.
I said this last year: Our society has become gullible towards video.
Nothing in the image or the sound is proof for anything to the matter.
I could do this same kind of video. Anybody could.
(We see paper materials that look like the original but those can be produced by anyone. We see anonymous hands, we see an anonymous location. Some moronic info “AfD” Greens.” Come on…)
Its childishly to-the-face style betrays it.
The fact that it exists in the first place is evidence. Nobody would film this if the goal was to cover up election fraud.
If there is an issue then it´s inadequate election service overseas. But there it was most likely not to harm the smaller parties but simply for lack of interest.
The other issue could well be the similarity of party names which were listed close to each other.
And the fact that Berlin did have to repeat the local elections is an example which offers proof that things can go wrong.
I’ll take the bait and play contrary.
I see the discussion further down of how the folding of the ballots etc was wrong. So yes, a fake.
But had there been actual ballot shredding, more than one refusniks might have wanted to document it. If these were postal workers as alleged, they probably have good employment protection.
Another possibility, had this been bona fide, the point could have been to show how easy it was to tamper, as in the controls of the vote collection process were defective.
Are defective. Difficult to vote when you don’t get the ballot in time and it is as close as obvious as can be that the BSW and the AfD would have been pushed over their thresholds if the ballots had gone out in time for electors to vote and have them delivered back to the counting centre so the entire process was invalid, not just the vote collection and count. And when the German Ambassador to the UK didn’t even get a ballot and he states it publicly, then something is very rotten in the State of Germany.
That the video was taken down suggests that The Powers That Be feel very insecure and they probably insecure in power, which is the real story of the video.
https://www-hamburg-de.translate.goog/politik-und-verwaltung/behoerden/behoerde-fuer-inneres-und-sport/presseservice/pressemeldungen/bundestagswahl-2025-fake-video-1024112?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=ja&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Looks fake indeed.
You have a phone camera that tracks the ballots from opening to shredding. So you quite obviously has someone filming this, let’s call it the cameraman. Then you have a woman who opens the ballot envelopes, shows them to the cameraman and loudly declares which party it is.
If they are rigging an election, why would they document the procedure? If they accidentally filmed and released the evidence of their crime, why would it be blocked to show the crime but nothing identifying the persons or their environment?
It’s staged, so it’s fake.
Even though the inconsistencies with real ballots mean this was phony, 2 people and crude video would not prove that.
2 people would say 2 people not happy with what was happening and wanting to document what was afoot.
If they wanted to document wouldn´t they film other people then themselves? Wouldn´t they try to film who it is for future identification? Wouldn´t they film discreetly and not obviously out in the open?
That it doesn´t match real ballots is a stronger argument, but that it is staged is a in my opinion both obvious and enough of an indicator that it is false.
From what I could see the ballot papers had different pen colours and stroke widths, they went to a lot of the trouble to fake it. Why I first saw it, I thought it was virtue signalling by (my guess) a Die Linke supporter. Die Linke based pretty much their whole political campaign as being in vehement opposition to AfD. And why would an Irish freesheet newspaper be the one to debunk the story?
Really comprehensive and informative write-up, Kevin. Thanks very much and welcome to what is becoming an increasingly important news site.
FWIW I’m a bit dubious about the ballot shredding video, though it does spawn an image in your head that’s hard to forget. Seems like if ballot destruction were actually taking place, it would be at more of an industrial scale (at least they would have a letter opener!) And no one would be doing these janky over the shoulder video clips of a criminal operation and then posting them on X. This seems more like something you would throw together if you were trying to cast doubt on the voting system.
Keep the great stuff coming!
I hope that Die Linke will challenge the continued support for the war. I thought that was part of their platform
Die Linke seems mealy mouthed about it in my opinion.
A spokes person says that it was all Putin in this interview but also tries to tells us that they were for negotiations .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiE6Bm4yzQ8
Thanks. If that is the case, they will sink back below the 5% threshold
They won’t. Well, maybe they will, but that’s not going to be caused by their fake pro-peace stance. The Linkspartei made a very deliberate choice to abandon its old electorate and instead focus liberal-progressive urbanites. Their new core constituency is one of the most belligerent ones. A poll showed 80% of their voters are supportive of the Jihad against the Shadow in the East.
It’s not an orthodox SocDem party anymore. It’s a new Green party that will benefit in times when the original decides to abandon its lunatic fringe for tactical reasons (= in preparation for a coalition with the CDU). It’s all about various cultural liberal causes, climate austerity and open borders maximalism.
They do have good economic proposals – on paper. But those are unattainable if Germany’s ruinous war against Russia continues. And here they don’t deviate at all from the mainstream (their attempts to sell it as something else notwithstanding).
I would opine (on the hunch) they were pulled out of the hat to divert BSW votes and can now go back as the job is done.
We certainly do not have clear proof of chicanery in the German election. Mere incompetence may be adequate, but it wouldn’t surprise me. The aristos are nervous and who knows what will happen.
It’s fascinating to me that we’re seeing the same kind of strong form Zelensky hagiography and hollow triumphalism that applied in the early going – clearly, like the Bourbons, they have forgotten nothing and learned nothing. It seems like le petite roi would love to try a military intervention but as the saying goes, things that can’t happen, won’t.
Interesting times, eh?
You can see how far Germany has fallen, they were always known for their competence.
on the German BSW election problem:
The real issue here is NOT the fraught election.
It is the media campaign that started right after BSW was formed, around one year ago.
THAT was the real gigantic scandal.
And the heinous nature of it was that it so well blended into the entire daily political culture that almost no one had a serious problem except those who were siding with BSW.
Every single other person was somehow attacking BSW and fine with the smearing.
Only on the basis of poisoning the culture and the public mind at large was it possible that possible weaknesses of the voting system could reach the size that they would matter.
These voting problems have always been there. But had it not been to BSW dropping out so close we would still not address them.
Thus: Assuming BSW would end up with 5% in parliament would that change the structural authoritarian mood in the FRG? Anything about what is happening now? No.
The situation was more promising early last year when here and in other online and real spaces you could see and feel that there was a glimmer of hope. But so did the “empire” and they very expertly eradicated that hope.
“The rapid purge [of a highly questionable video] suggests authenticity” is the kind of logic that brought us QAnon. I disagree that “It would otherwise be in the authorities’ interest to leave the video up, demonize it as false, and further broadcast that the clip demonstrates that efforts to discredit election integrity are fake news.” Recent and not-recent experience shows that highlighting suspect information along with vigorous official denials only reinforces the false information among people who were already inclined to believe it.
Sorry, that is not correct. Look at the famous US case that ended award-winning journalist Dan Rather’s career. Rather showcased unauthenticated documents on allegations that President George W. Bush had failed to serve his required time in the National Guard. If you read Dan Rather’s bio and the Wikipedia entry on the controversy, it’s all about the documents, which were indeed fakes (the source later claimed they were copies of originals). You have to get through paragraphs of discussion of the documents before there is any mention of the underlying allegation.
The issue here is that many were claiming at the time that Bush had indeed been given a pass on fulfilling his National Guard obligations. Rather fell for a fake smoking gun. The effect AT THE TIME (and I remember it well) was that it had the effect of also discrediting the underlying story.
So your assumption has been shown to be false.
Similarly, see the Streisand effect, which is the media version of “the cover-up is worse than the crime”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
So here, suppression of the seemingly fake video = at a minimum officials seeking to suppress questions about election integrity, when election methods should be routinely subject to challenge as part of a functioning democracy (absent robust methods like paper ballots counted in public). More simply, “Why are they so worried if there is nothing to see here?”
There is a separate issue that you may be incorrectly conflating with this one, that when people have well established priors, presenting them with contrary evidence winds up leading most people to double down on their beliefs. But those “prior” are seldom the result of a single account but built over time. So telling someone that a piece of evidence that supports their priors will indeed fail, but it’s because of the strength of the priors, which are not likely to depend on a single bit of evidence.
re: faked truth
actually I always liked this scene due to the humour, from “OFFICIAL SECRETS” (biopic about GCHQ whistleblower Katharine Gun and Iraq)
It´s a bit related with the very last comment
“spell check!!!”
3 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHTFZC_eRyE
Another wonderfully informative Monday Coffee Break! Thanks much! The context and perspective are indispensable.
Lots to chew over in this post. Re the planned breakup of the Russian Federation. To repeat a comment I made some time ago, I really do think that the origin for this war is that the west has gotten itself into a catastrophic financial mess with debt growing to the skies. And that if they took over Russia and gave it the chop-shop treatment, that the tens of trillions of dollars that they could have stolen from it would have bailed out those western countries – for a while at least. But Russia fought back and has beaten them. So now there will be no big payout and the west has sunk – to my guesstimate – about half a trillion dollars into Project Ukraine which they will never get back leaving them in a far worse situation. The crackdown of elections and dissent is this a result of the panic of the elites running the west as they have no idea what to do now.
Those half a trillion dollars did not sink into the abyss, but ended up in someone’s pockets. Someone with very big pockets, I must add. Maybe that’s why the most paid actor on the planet wears cargo pants all the time. Lots of pockets there to put all the money he asks for.
Great Kevs think alike.