President Donald Trump listens as he was speaking with reporters while in flight on Air Force One, Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, as returning to Joint Base Andrews, Md
THIS doesn’t end here. Unless the United States faces consequences for what it is doing in Venezuela it will do it, or try to, again and again.
It says so itself — one reason Keir Starmer, Friedrich Merz, Emmanuel Macron and other Trump appeasers appear so ridiculous.
When Trump in his first term blurted out that US forces were in Syria “only for the oil,” his allies’ embarrassment could be glossed over by a media unwilling to expose years of its own propaganda about humanitarian interventions and counter-terror operations.
Not now. Trump kidnaps a head of state and then announces Washington will “run” his country.
What does that mean? Well, what remains of the Venezuelan government must grant Washington “total access. We need access to the oil and to other things in their country.” What if Venezuela’s Vice-President Delcy Rodriguez won’t do as she’s told? She’ll face “a situation worse than Maduro.” Maybe killed in the kidnapping operation, like the 32 brave Cuban soldiers who died defending her boss.
The Trump White House narrative is in our faces every day. Who can take seriously Merz’s call for an explanation on how US actions are justified in international law, when Secretary for War Pete Hegseth vows to pursue “maximum lethality not tepid legality?” The politicians of the old Washington Consensus merely look pathetic through their “hear no evil, see no evil” approach to the new one.
Hence the backlash against Starmer’s feeble fence-sitting, involving MPs well beyond the socialist left (such as Emily Thornberry), the TUC and the rapidly growing Greens.
There are half-hearted efforts to depict Venezuela as a special case. But again the Trump White House’s loudmouth assertions undermine the pretence.
Attacking Colombia and removing its elected president “sounds good to me,” says Trump. Cuba’s government is “going down.” The US “has to do something with Mexico,” “needs Greenland, absolutely.”
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
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Amnesty International stage a protest against German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s upcoming visit to Israel at Pariser Platz in Berlin, Germany on December 5, 2025. [Halil Sağırkaya – Anadolu Agency]
Amnesty International staged a demonstration in central Berlin on Friday to protest German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s planned weekend visit to Israel amid ongoing war crimes in Gaza, Anadolu reports.
Human rights activists gathered at Pariser Platz, placing a tank replica in front of the Brandenburg Gate to demand an end to German arms exports to Israel. They carried banners reading “Weapons are not welcoming gifts for war criminals” and “No weapons for war crimes in Gaza.”
Katja Muller-Fahlbusch, a Middle East and North Africa expert at Amnesty International, criticized Merz’s decision to visit Israel despite the Israeli government’s genocidal policies in Gaza and its violations of international law.
“We are protesting here today to say clearly and loudly, no business as usual with Israel,” Muller-Fahlbusch told Anadolu.
“The trip by Chancellor Merz sends a signal as if everything were normal in Gaza, as if the situation had calmed down. But people continue to suffer, the genocide continues, Israel’s war crimes continue, day after day, and that is what we are protesting against.”
The Amnesty activist also criticized the Merz government for lifting restrictions on arms exports to Israel, saying Germany should respect its international obligations and impose a complete arms embargo against Israel.
“It is a scandal that Mr. Merz is meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” she said. “Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity. He belongs in The Hague. This is not the moment to shake hands with him.”
Amid growing public pressure, Merz ordered restrictions on arms exports to Israel in August. However, he lifted these restrictions last month, citing the October 10 ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
Merz, a strong supporter of Israel, has repeatedly emphasized Germany’s historical responsibility for Israel’s security, rooted in its Nazi past and the Holocaust.
A representative poll published by the Korber Foundation last month found that 82% of Germans oppose the government’s military support to Israel for its war in Gaza. Only 15% expressed support.
The survey also revealed a fundamental shift in how Germans view their historical obligations, with 60% rejecting the notion that Germany bears special responsibility for Israel due to its history and the Holocaust. Just 38% supported this traditional stance.
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Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Vote Labour for Genocide.
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German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Berlin, Germany, on July 22, 2025. [Halil Sağırkaya – Anadolu Agency]
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Friday called the humanitarian situation in Gaza “unacceptable,” according to media reports. Anadolu reports.
“One thing is clear to us: The situation there is unacceptable. It must end as quickly as possible. As long as it (this conflict) continues, at least a minimum of aid, medical assistance, and food aid must be guaranteed for the population. And Israel, of course, bears a considerable degree of responsibility for this,” Merz told journalists in the southwestern city of Saarbruecken.
Despite the dire humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, Germany has been one of the EU states to reject sanctions against Israel.
This was one of the reasons why EU governments were unable to agree on a proposal from the European Commission. The Commission proposed temporarily suspending Israel’s participation in the Horizon Europe research funding program.
According to Merz, his government will soon decide on the next steps in the Gaza conflict. He expects a report from Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul once he returns from his visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories on Saturday.
“We will await this report and make all further decisions,” the chancellor said when asked whether the German government could imagine participating in sanctions against Israel.
The government had already discussed in the Security Cabinet last Monday “how we might proceed together with our European partners,” he added.
Germany’s center-right government is under mounting pressure to adopt a tougher stance on Israel over what international human rights organizations say is a genocide in Gaza.
The Israeli army has pursued a brutal offensive on Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023, killing over 60,200 Palestinians. The relentless bombardment has devastated the enclave and led to food shortages.
On Monday, Israeli rights groups B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, citing the systematic destruction of Palestinian society and the deliberate dismantling of the territory’s health care system.
Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
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Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.Vote Labour for Genocide.
Friedrich Merz says he is eager to re-engage with international partners
Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting didn’t wait for the final results of his country’s election on Sunday to herald a new era in Europe.
Declaring the US indifferent to this continent’s fate, Friedrich Merz questioned the future of Nato and demanded Europe boost its own defences. Quickly.
This tone from the close US ally – and from Friedrich Merz who is known to be a passionate Atlanticist – would have been unimaginable even a couple of months ago.
It’s a seismic shift. That may read like hyperbole, but what we are now experiencing in terms of transatlantic relations is unprecedented in the 80 years since the end of World War Two.
Big European powers have been shocked to the core by the Trump administration, which suggests it could revoke the security guarantees to Europe in place since 1945.
“I would never have thought that I would have to say something like this in a TV show but, after Donald Trump’s remarks last week… it is clear that this government does not care much about the fate of Europe,” Friedrich Merz said during a post-election debate on Sunday.
“My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA,” he added.
With only a few weeks until Germany’s election, Elon Musk has unambiguously thrown his support behind the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. In a video address to a party rally last week, he appeared to urge Germans to “move on” from any “past guilt” related to the Holocaust.
It’s good to be proud of German culture, German values, and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything.
Troublingly, the AfD is now firmly entrenched as Germany’s second-most popular political party, behind the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Like all parties in German elections, however, it cannot win an outright majority. It is also unlikely to be invited to join any ruling coalition that emerges from the February 23 election.
But the AfD’s anti-migrant, anti-government sloganeering has already seriously distorted Germany’s public debate and democratic culture, leaving many to ask whether it even needs to win elections to see its policies implemented.
This was evident following a dramatic week in Germany’s Bundestag.
First, in a radical break with Germany’s political norms, opposition leader Friedrich Merz deliberately drew on the votes of the AfD on Wednesday to ram a radical anti-asylum seeker motion through the parliament.
It was the first time in the history of the Bundestag that a parliamentary majority was reached with the help of the far right. Merz’s action was widely condemned as a “taboo-breaking” step towards legitimising the AfD.
The so-called ‘firewall’ was broken this week between mainstream German political parties and the far right. Clemens Bilan/EPA
Merz tried to take this a step further with a far-reaching bill to tighten immigration controls on Friday. Although the bill narrowly failed, all of the AfD voted with Merz. Twelve members of his own CDU party refused to back him.
Merz’s courting of the far right is widely seen as politically unnecessary, given his conservative CDU is already leading the national polls, making him the favourite to succeed the Social Democratic Party (SDP)‘s Olaf Scholz as chancellor.
This raises a couple crucial questions heading into the election. Is it insiders or outsiders that are playing the biggest role in bringing the far right into the mainstream? And just how big a role will the AfD play after the election?
The Musk effect
Musk’s embrace of the AfD should come as no surprise, given the integral part he played in Donald Trump’s election victory in the United States. In the German context, however, his behaviour and statements have taken on darker hues.
Germans know only too well what is at stake when democracy is eroded by those who abuse its freedoms to attack it. Had Musk’s now notorious Nazi salutes following Trump’s inauguration been performed in Berlin, for example, he might have faced up to three years in prison.
The catchphrase “never again” has underpinned German politics since the second world war. Yet, the response to Musk’s recent provocations was oddly muted in some sections of the German media.
With a few notable exceptions, it was left to activists to remind Germans of the severity of this gesture – projecting an image of Musk’s salute on a German Tesla plant, alongside the word “heil”.
Given the seriousness with which Germany patrols representations of its Nazi past, it was surprising just how few journalists were prepared to state without equivocation that “a Hitler salute is a Hitler salute is a Hitler salute”.
Merz’s embrace of the far right
Initially, there were some signs Germany’s main political leaders would decry Musk’s attempts to normalise far-right politics in the country.
Scholz has continued to label Musk’s blatant attempts to influence German politics as “unacceptable” and “disgusting”.
Merz claims to be keeping his distance from Musk. But it appears his strategy for winning the election is not far from what Musk is suggesting – mimicking AfD policies and collaborating with the party on anti-immigration votes.
In his most radical break with the centrism that characterised the CDU under former Chancellor Angela Merkel, Merz cracked the “firewall” against working with the far-right this week. Knowing just what it meant, he used the AfD’s support to pass the starkly worded nationalist border protection motion in the Bundestag.
Democratic party leaders, meanwhile, registered their shock and dismay. Merkel herself spoke out against Merz, saying it was “wrong” to “knowingly” work with the AfD.
Her intervention appears to have been critical to the immigration bill failing on Friday, with many of her former supporters in the CDU withholding their votes.
A defaced election poster for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) showing leader Friedrich Merz smeared with a Hitler moustache. Martin Meissner/AP
What AfD’s rise could mean
Given the two votes in the past week and Musk’s high-profile intervention, many in Germany now fear a CDU victory in the election could signal more collaboration with the AfD.
The Greens’ Robert Habeck, Germany’s vice chancellor, has said Merz’s nationalist coalition would “destroy Europe”. He has also warned Musk to keep his “hands off our democracy”, prompting Musk to label Habeck “a traitor to the German people”.
People attend the election campaign launch of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on Jan. 25. Hannibal Hanschke/EPA
Musk is by no means the cause of the AfD’s popularity, but his embrace of the extremist party has given it a global profile and credibility in circles that might not have otherwise considered supporting it.
As some commentators have suggested, it is probably not coincidental the AfD’s plans for the German economy would benefit Musk’s business interests. Economic self-interest alone seems insufficient, however, to explain why Musk has gravitated to the extreme right.
The same might be said of Merz. Electoral calculations alone cannot explain his risky courting of the far right. He has long been the frontrunner to win the next election. Cosying up to the AfD will only make it harder to form a coalition with either Scholz’s Social Democratic Party or the Greens.
If these two parties refuse to deal with Merz, the only other bloc large enough to deliver his party control of the government would be the AfD. Would he go so far?
Whether it is formally part of the next government or not, the AfD and its camp followers (such as Musk) could be set to have a much bigger influence on German politics. How this will change Germany in the long term remains to be seen.
President Donald Trump listens as he was speaking with reporters while in flight on Air Force One, Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, as returning to Joint Base Andrews, Md
