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[EU]ropean democracies thread

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Posts

  • EchoEcho ski-bap ba-dapModerator mod
    The police will have a press release in about an hour with what they have so far. Previous implications is traffic accident.

  • EchoEcho ski-bap ba-dapModerator mod
    edited October 2021
    tl;dr from press event:
    • Vilks + two police officers in the same vehicle.
    • Witness says it was going extremely fast, "over 160 km/h".
    • Vehicle seemed to lose control and end up on the wrong side of the road, collided with truck in the opposite lane.

    160 km/h is hella fast and an outright unsafe speed. (edit: ~100 mph)

    Police says there's no evidence of an attack or "external factors".

    Echo on
  • AbsalonAbsalon Lands of Always WinterRegistered User regular
    That vehicle is supposed to have anti-puncture tires. A truly bizarre accident.

  • FiendishrabbitFiendishrabbit Registered User regular
    Well. I was wondering how a car could end up in the opposite lane since that part of the E4 has a central divider. But a SUV going 160kmh would probably just flip over that barrier like it was nothing.
    Still, why on earth were they going that fast?

    "The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
    -Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
  • NeveronNeveron HellValleySkyTree SwedenRegistered User regular
    Sounds like there might've been a tire explosion that sent them careening through the barrier? (It was a 4.5-ton reinforced vehicle, so yeah the barrier's not gonna stop that.)

    No clue why it was going so fast in the first place, though. Probably some kind of accelerator malfunction or something, unless they were the types to break the speed limit by forty-something km/h just for the hell of it?

  • EchoEcho ski-bap ba-dapModerator mod
    Neveron wrote: »
    Sounds like there might've been a tire explosion that sent them careening through the barrier? (It was a 4.5-ton reinforced vehicle, so yeah the barrier's not gonna stop that.)

    No clue why it was going so fast in the first place, though. Probably some kind of accelerator malfunction or something, unless they were the types to break the speed limit by forty-something km/h just for the hell of it?

    For the record, this is the kind of barrier on that road, for certain values of "barrier". (And it wouldn't exactly be unheard of police thinking that speed limits are for other people.)

    45fbyg7fktmp.png

  • FiendishrabbitFiendishrabbit Registered User regular
    Echo wrote: »
    Neveron wrote: »
    Sounds like there might've been a tire explosion that sent them careening through the barrier? (It was a 4.5-ton reinforced vehicle, so yeah the barrier's not gonna stop that.)

    No clue why it was going so fast in the first place, though. Probably some kind of accelerator malfunction or something, unless they were the types to break the speed limit by forty-something km/h just for the hell of it?

    For the record, this is the kind of barrier on that road, for certain values of "barrier". (And it wouldn't exactly be unheard of police thinking that speed limits are for other people.)

    45fbyg7fktmp.png

    That barrier is perfectly adequate for catching a car that's going at (or slightly above) the speedlimit (which is 120kmh on this road). A SUV going 160...not so much.

    "The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
    -Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
  • HonkHonk Honk is this poster. Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    edited October 2021
    No blame in advance but police do like driving insanely fast whether there’s an emergency or not.

    I don’t know but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were just gottagoing fast.

    Honk on
    PSN: Honkalot
  • AbsalonAbsalon Lands of Always WinterRegistered User regular
    edited October 2021
    If momentum and inertia had a baby they would name it "An SUV going 160 km/h". It is borderline murder-suicide and it is tragic that that is the least nefarious explanation.

    Absalon on
  • honoverehonovere Registered User regular
    More offshore money data leaks. This time a lot of politicians in there, it seems.
    https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/03/pandora-papers-biggest-ever-leak-of-offshore-data-exposes-financial-secrets-of-rich-and-powerful

    for Europe it features
    The Pandora papers also threaten to cause political upsets for two European Union leaders. The prime minister of the Czech republic, Andrej Babiš, who is up for election this week, is facing questions over why he used an offshore investment company to acquire a $22m chateau in the south of France. He too declined to comment.
    And in Cyprus, itself a controversial offshore centre, the president, Nicos Anastasiades, may be asked to explain why a law firm he founded was accused of hiding the assets of a controversial Russian billionaire behind fake company owners. The firm denies any wrongdoing, while the Cypriot president says he ceased having an active role in its affairs after becoming leader of the opposition in 1997.

    and also a bunch of not illegal but shady stuff for others.

  • [Expletive deleted][Expletive deleted] The mediocre doctor NorwayRegistered User regular
    honovere wrote: »
    More offshore money data leaks. This time a lot of politicians in there, it seems.
    https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/03/pandora-papers-biggest-ever-leak-of-offshore-data-exposes-financial-secrets-of-rich-and-powerful

    for Europe it features
    The Pandora papers also threaten to cause political upsets for two European Union leaders. The prime minister of the Czech republic, Andrej Babiš, who is up for election this week, is facing questions over why he used an offshore investment company to acquire a $22m chateau in the south of France. He too declined to comment.
    And in Cyprus, itself a controversial offshore centre, the president, Nicos Anastasiades, may be asked to explain why a law firm he founded was accused of hiding the assets of a controversial Russian billionaire behind fake company owners. The firm denies any wrongdoing, while the Cypriot president says he ceased having an active role in its affairs after becoming leader of the opposition in 1997.

    and also a bunch of not illegal but shady stuff for others.

    To add insult to injury, the Czech PM was elected on an anti-corruption platform.

    But he is also commonly labelled the "Czech Trump", so...

    Sic transit gloria mundi.
  • Commander ZoomCommander Zoom Registered User regular
    drain the swamp!

  • daveNYCdaveNYC Why universe hate Waspinator? Registered User regular
    honovere wrote: »
    More offshore money data leaks. This time a lot of politicians in there, it seems.
    https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/oct/03/pandora-papers-biggest-ever-leak-of-offshore-data-exposes-financial-secrets-of-rich-and-powerful

    for Europe it features
    The Pandora papers also threaten to cause political upsets for two European Union leaders. The prime minister of the Czech republic, Andrej Babiš, who is up for election this week, is facing questions over why he used an offshore investment company to acquire a $22m chateau in the south of France. He too declined to comment.
    And in Cyprus, itself a controversial offshore centre, the president, Nicos Anastasiades, may be asked to explain why a law firm he founded was accused of hiding the assets of a controversial Russian billionaire behind fake company owners. The firm denies any wrongdoing, while the Cypriot president says he ceased having an active role in its affairs after becoming leader of the opposition in 1997.

    and also a bunch of not illegal but shady stuff for others.

    To add insult to injury, the Czech PM was elected on an anti-corruption platform.

    But he is also commonly labelled the "Czech Trump", so...

    The Czech elections are this Friday and Saturday, so this is really good timing.

    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
  • CornucopiistCornucopiist Registered User regular
    At this moment, in the run-up France is very much the weak spot of Western European democracies.

    -I've already said that I consider it a police state, which is one (strong) aspect of this, but it's not very different from Spain in that. (Spain, and it's far-right resurgence with the Vox party, is a powder keg as well but shouldn't be up for elections before 2023)
    -Another aspect is the elitism in French bureaucracy (reflecting society). France can be described as ruled by technocrats trained a the ENA National School of Administration. This situation was best described by a student of said school interviewed when its status came under scrutiny: "I don't understand," she said, "why wouldn't people want to be ruled by the best people?". Kudos to Macron, himself an alumnus; he has vowed to shutter the school and end the reign of the civil servants.
    Between the two, there's significant grounds for a populist movement akin to the US' militia/alt right to grow. And whereas Macron has been enabling the farthest right of the republicans, and Le Pen has been cleaning up her act, a new contender on the right has not just arisen but jumped to the front of the queue.

    "Zemmour has espoused the “great replacement theory” that suggests Muslim immigrants will overwhelm the native inhabitants of Europe, and has a gift for polemical, anti-woke, anti-green, anti-migrant hyperbole that many voters find attractive. “No small town, no small village in France is safe from a savage squad of Chechen, Kosovar, Maghrebi or African gangs who steal, rape, pillage, torture and kill,” he writes in his new book."

    https://www.ft.com/content/e794f9c5-4f1f-4206-8680-f46f0fbaabbf

    In a previous post I explained how Macron was elected with a lot of left-wing votes, people who voted solely to block Le Pen. One might assume that now Le Pen has become much more palatable to the center, Zemmour is the ideal bogeyman to push the center-right and the left together again. It's an extremely dangerous gamble, even if the outcome appears sure.

    https://www.thelocal.fr/20211006/opinion-zemmour-might-not-worry-macron-but-he-should-worry-france/

    The French president has extensive powers and is a key figure in EU level politics. It was Macron and Olaf Scholz, the likely German chancellor-elect, who organised the movement for a global corporate tax. Together they might give political backing for the European Commission's green deal.
    But if next year France gets an 'identitarian' (alt right) president, one can count on not just France, but the entire EU being torpedoed by the sort of statesmanship that characterizes post-Brexit Britain; except worse. Again, it's an unlikely spectre.

    But it's a certainty that this spectre will not return to its bottle. Le Pen has been told by Zemmour that she's too mellow, too weak, and that the French right is ripe for the taking by extremists like himself. And he's not alone in exploiting the zeitgeist. "The great replacement" is the theory that undermined, via Unite leader Len McCluskey, the anti-Brexit campaign of Corbyn. It's the backdoor that Putin has helped create and now exploits to the fullest. "The great replacement" is pan-european and ubiquitous; it's fast becoming our "white supremacy".

  • daveNYCdaveNYC Why universe hate Waspinator? Registered User regular
    Any thoughts on if this might stop Macron's rightward drift? From what (little) I've followed over the last few years he seems to be chasing the Le Pen-lite vote. I can only guess that his plan is to get enough of her votes to win outright, with the backup plan being the assumption that the left wing will vote for him no matter how much of a useless git he is because the alternative is worse. Which seems a dubious Plan B considering that he doesn't seem to have done much as even a token thank you to everyone who held their nose and voted for him.

    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
  • EchoEcho ski-bap ba-dapModerator mod
    -I've already said that I consider it a police state, which is one (strong) aspect of this, but it's not very different from Spain in that.

    Definitely. France has been in a state of emergency since the 2016 terrorist attack.

  • CornucopiistCornucopiist Registered User regular
    daveNYC wrote: »
    Any thoughts on if this might stop Macron's rightward drift? From what (little) I've followed over the last few years he seems to be chasing the Le Pen-lite vote. I can only guess that his plan is to get enough of her votes to win outright, with the backup plan being the assumption that the left wing will vote for him no matter how much of a useless git he is because the alternative is worse. Which seems a dubious Plan B considering that he doesn't seem to have done much as even a token thank you to everyone who held their nose and voted for him.

    Macron probably expects the economy to pick up *any moment now* and create a hausse that will return all things to nominal with some slight adjustments re: green. This slipping towards Le Pen is unlikely to be intended as anything other than a placeholder.
    Of course, if things do not pick up economically, he has been laying the groundwork for a centre-right revival with economically minded Les Republicains welcoming back the liberals who left for Macron. Unfortunately, I don't have nearly as much engagement with republicains as I have with left-wing and populist French voters. I think an anti-migration, republican/christian values, fiscally conservative platform could float. Foreing media like to single out Barnier as the torchholder, but imho the LR is about as close to a united front as the left, let alone attracting votes from further afield.
    Personally, I'd love to see the party eat humble pie as Sarkozy continues to gather criminal convictions, but who are we kidding?

    Echo wrote: »
    Definitely. France has been in a state of emergency since the 2016 terrorist attack.

    The roots of the current police state go way further back, but I would say the current incarnation comes from the Nuits Debout demonstrations and the Notre Dame des Landes occupation.

    The French police was its own animal even before that, but those events marked a real turn. Going into the Yellow Vest demonstrations the violence escalated, too. The recent high point was when the Paris police chief was sacked for telling his police not to fire rubber bullets at protestors. Then came COVID, which took some of the heat off the demonstrations but of course the state took full advantage of COVID measures to both cut civil liberties and paint the yellow vests as extremists- not that some of them aren't.

  • daveNYCdaveNYC Why universe hate Waspinator? Registered User regular
    Czech elections are tomorrow and Saturday. The lower house of Parliament (the Chamber of Deputies) only, all 200 seats are up for grabs. They are the house that will form the actual government, so PM is on the table too.

    The players:
    ANO - 78 seats currently. The current PM, Babiš, is their man. Second richest guy in the country, supposedly has no direct control over his financial empire at the moment. And would you like to purchase some New York City infrastructure on the cheap? He's also been busted for getting fat EU subsidies that he shouldn't have, and was named in the Pandora Papers as having bought a $22 million chateau on the French Riviera. The party itself is centre-right and has been dropping some quality racist rhetoric recently.

    ODS: Civic Democratic Party - 25 seats currently. Right wing conservative. Eurosceptics too. Joy. They're the marginally sane right-wingers though.

    Czech Pirate Party - 22 seats currently. You know the anti-copyright parties that cropped up around Europe back in the day? Well these guys got organized and came up with an actual platform and everything. Anti-corruption, pro-transparency, environmental, generally good stuff. They're pro-Euro though, which ain't great. A monetary union without a strong fiscal union no es bueno. Hilarious political ads too.

    SPD: Freedom and Direct Democracy - 22 seats currently. Their name has Freedom and Democracy in it, so they have to be good, right? Except, shocker, they're wankers. This is the AfD/Vox/UKIP equivalent. All the poop from a butt that you'd expect. Added bonus is that the leader is the son of a Japanese immigrant, not that hypocrisy has ever slowed any of these types down before. Added bonus, they're looking to tap into the grumpiness over Covid prevention measures, vax passports and the like. So the usual xenophobic Nurgle cult.

    KSCM: Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia - 15 seats currently. They're also supporting the current government. The one lead by a corrupt billionaire. Yeah. Generally left wing, bigger with the old folks and those in smaller cities and towns. I'll give them some points for keeping the communist in their name, shows a level of commitment and/or bullheadedness that I can respect.

    Czech Social Democratic Party - 15 seats currently. They're social democrats. Mixed economy, welfare, progressive taxes (something that interestingly enough, the Czech Republic doesn't really have a lot of), pro EU.

    KDU-CSL: Christian and Democratic Union - Czechoslovak People's Party - 10 seats currently. Christian Democrats. The usual there too near as I can tell.

    Top 09. Pro EU. Deficit hawks.

    STAN: Starstove: Mayors and Independents - 6 seats currently. An interesting one, focused on localism. They're fans of more money and authority to local governments. They're teamed up this time around with the Pirates who are into decentralization too, among other policy similarities.

    Z: Green Party - 0 seats currently. European Greens.

    The game:
    Party-List Proportional Representation, D'Hondt method.
    Form a party, come up with a list of candidates, then the available seats are doled out to the parties based on their proportion of the vote, and those seats are then given to the peeps on the list. This specific flavor encourages larger parties and coalitions, still much better than FPTP.

    The teams:
    ANO: Running solo. Currently polling at 26%

    SPOLU: Civic Democratic Party, KDU-ČSL, and TOP 09. Currently polling at 21%.

    Pirate-STAN: Who it says on the tin. Currently at 18%.

    SPD: Also running alone. Currently at 11%.

    Everyone else, 5% or lower.

    The last poll I can find was on the 30th of September, so no idea what impact the Pandora Papers have had on things.

    The fly in the ointment is that the President, noted professional self-embalmer, and man whose main goal in life is to have his BAC equal his age, Miloš Zeman is buddy-buddy with Babiš. This matters because he decides who gets a shot at forming a government and back when the Pirate-STAN alliance was leading ANO in the polls, he said that the chance to form a government should go to the largest party, not the largest alliance. So potential shenanigans are on the horizon.

    There's also the fun fact that the SPD has already indicated that their loyalty is purchasable for the low low price of a Czexit referendum.

    So turn in on Sunday Sunday Sunday to see how things turn out.

    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
  • honoverehonovere Registered User regular
    Meanwhile at Europe's borders

    https://www.lighthousereports.nl/investigation/unmasking-europes-shadow-armies/
    EU governments deny the existence of a violent campaign by masked men to turn away asylum seekers at EU borders. A months-long investigation by @LHReports & leading media unmasks these groups, reveals who commands & finances them

  • TryCatcherTryCatcher Registered User regular
    Macron's handling of issues has been 100% pure technocrat "because we are your betters shut up", so don't expect his promises to close the ENA to make much of a dent. The entire Yellow Vest movement was created by Macron thinking that having to negotiate with the transport sector, or giving a damn about public opinion was beneath him. He was wrong. And after that, he doubled down on just letting the police do as they will.

    Since the other alternative are fascists, a return of the center-right is a strong possibility. Or is the worst case scenario and LePen enters as the "moderate" candidate.

  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    daveNYC wrote: »
    Czech elections are tomorrow and Saturday. The lower house of Parliament (the Chamber of Deputies) only, all 200 seats are up for grabs. They are the house that will form the actual government, so PM is on the table too.

    The players:
    ANO - 78 seats currently. The current PM, Babiš, is their man. Second richest guy in the country, supposedly has no direct control over his financial empire at the moment. And would you like to purchase some New York City infrastructure on the cheap? He's also been busted for getting fat EU subsidies that he shouldn't have, and was named in the Pandora Papers as having bought a $22 million chateau on the French Riviera. The party itself is centre-right and has been dropping some quality racist rhetoric recently.

    ODS: Civic Democratic Party - 25 seats currently. Right wing conservative. Eurosceptics too. Joy. They're the marginally sane right-wingers though.

    Czech Pirate Party - 22 seats currently. You know the anti-copyright parties that cropped up around Europe back in the day? Well these guys got organized and came up with an actual platform and everything. Anti-corruption, pro-transparency, environmental, generally good stuff. They're pro-Euro though, which ain't great. A monetary union without a strong fiscal union no es bueno. Hilarious political ads too.

    SPD: Freedom and Direct Democracy - 22 seats currently. Their name has Freedom and Democracy in it, so they have to be good, right? Except, shocker, they're wankers. This is the AfD/Vox/UKIP equivalent. All the poop from a butt that you'd expect. Added bonus is that the leader is the son of a Japanese immigrant, not that hypocrisy has ever slowed any of these types down before. Added bonus, they're looking to tap into the grumpiness over Covid prevention measures, vax passports and the like. So the usual xenophobic Nurgle cult.

    KSCM: Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia - 15 seats currently. They're also supporting the current government. The one lead by a corrupt billionaire. Yeah. Generally left wing, bigger with the old folks and those in smaller cities and towns. I'll give them some points for keeping the communist in their name, shows a level of commitment and/or bullheadedness that I can respect.

    Czech Social Democratic Party - 15 seats currently. They're social democrats. Mixed economy, welfare, progressive taxes (something that interestingly enough, the Czech Republic doesn't really have a lot of), pro EU.

    KDU-CSL: Christian and Democratic Union - Czechoslovak People's Party - 10 seats currently. Christian Democrats. The usual there too near as I can tell.

    Top 09. Pro EU. Deficit hawks.

    STAN: Starstove: Mayors and Independents - 6 seats currently. An interesting one, focused on localism. They're fans of more money and authority to local governments. They're teamed up this time around with the Pirates who are into decentralization too, among other policy similarities.

    Z: Green Party - 0 seats currently. European Greens.

    The game:
    Party-List Proportional Representation, D'Hondt method.
    Form a party, come up with a list of candidates, then the available seats are doled out to the parties based on their proportion of the vote, and those seats are then given to the peeps on the list. This specific flavor encourages larger parties and coalitions, still much better than FPTP.

    The teams:
    ANO: Running solo. Currently polling at 26%

    SPOLU: Civic Democratic Party, KDU-ČSL, and TOP 09. Currently polling at 21%.

    Pirate-STAN: Who it says on the tin. Currently at 18%.

    SPD: Also running alone. Currently at 11%.

    Everyone else, 5% or lower.

    The last poll I can find was on the 30th of September, so no idea what impact the Pandora Papers have had on things.

    The fly in the ointment is that the President, noted professional self-embalmer, and man whose main goal in life is to have his BAC equal his age, Miloš Zeman is buddy-buddy with Babiš. This matters because he decides who gets a shot at forming a government and back when the Pirate-STAN alliance was leading ANO in the polls, he said that the chance to form a government should go to the largest party, not the largest alliance. So potential shenanigans are on the horizon.

    There's also the fun fact that the SPD has already indicated that their loyalty is purchasable for the low low price of a Czexit referendum.

    So turn in on Sunday Sunday Sunday to see how things turn out.

    How are these parties with the rights of QUILTBAG+? The eastern part of the Republic shares has flirted with "gay-free zones" and the likes, but I wonder if it is as much of a problem as it is in Poland and Hungary?

  • SanderJKSanderJK Crocodylus Pontifex Sinterklasicus Madrid, 3000 ADRegistered User regular
    The interesting times never end, first of all this gas price crisis is getting nasty, and second Poland took a step towards partially unilaterally stepping out of EU treaties by declaring Polish law superior to EU law. There is a final step where the Polish government accepts the decision, and if they do, things may escalate quickly.

    The expected response is an immediate freeze on Polish EU funds, probably partially to start, until they reratify that EU law is the final arbiter. The only other exit is 0 funding until they leave.

    Steam: SanderJK Origin: SanderJK
  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    That would also mean Poland would leave Schengen, right? I can't imagine them going through with this, it'd be a worse seppuku than what the UK did.

  • HonkHonk Honk is this poster. Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    I wish the EU did something serious to curtail these countries.

    They're not gonna stop being fascist by being asked nicely. Take all the money away, block the free travel and free trade, go trade nuclear. You can't declare cities "lgbt free". That's about 5 minutes away from genocide.

    PSN: Honkalot
  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    Honk wrote: »
    I wish the EU did something serious to curtail these countries.

    They're not gonna stop being fascist by being asked nicely. Take all the money away, block the free travel and free trade, go trade nuclear. You can't declare cities "lgbt free". That's about 5 minutes away from genocide.

    The EU has always been a slow and ponderous beast and for most of its history it was a given that countries wanted to join the union. I'll go to bat and say that it was a mistake to scale the union up to 27 members without a sturdy plan on how to provide the same level of support as the union gave to Portugal and Ireland.

    The EU desperately needs big fixes, yet will probably muddle on. I've voted for Volt in the last national elections and I'll probably always vote for pro-EU parties going forward, but I only do that because I hope that pro-EU politicians will garner enough clout to start working on fixing the Union.

    The first fix needs to be a better set of rules pertaining membership: simple rules that outline when a country is immediately kicked out of the union, without first needing full support of every member state. Hungary and Poland have been nothing but trouble, yet the EU keeps sponsoring them. It's impossible to justify to the voters in countries that foot the bill.

  • SanderJKSanderJK Crocodylus Pontifex Sinterklasicus Madrid, 3000 ADRegistered User regular
    The EU did make it easier to defund, which is going to be their modus operandi from now on. It already happened once, regions of Poland were refused Corona aid because they declared themselves "LGBT free zones." Last I heard, all but 2 have since reversed that decision.

    Still the veto powers are a huge block. If you think the US filibuster is bad, wait until you need a 27/27 or 26/27 majority on a vote.

    Steam: SanderJK Origin: SanderJK
  • CornucopiistCornucopiist Registered User regular
    edited October 2021
    There's a deeper issue of course which is that the member states' governments are never going to tackle corruption because they are all up to a certain level corrupt.
    That's not even an EU-specific issue.
    Pandora is just about out of the news cycle here in Belgium and I guess across the rest of Europe it's pretty much the same thing.
    But it's that same corruption that breeds these fascist strongholds. David Brin in the US thinks the only way to explain the state of the GOP is that they are all being blackmailed. Here it's pretty much the same issue: all of these strong leaders are tottering over the precipice of boiling-hot lawsuits, and the only way to keep ahead of their corruption is to keep winning elections by any means (racism and bigotry) until they own the justice branch.
    And of course, there are the men behind the men; all of them are involved with organized crime because it gives them access to cheap money and dirty tricks.



    Cornucopiist on
  • daveNYCdaveNYC Why universe hate Waspinator? Registered User regular
    Aldo wrote: »
    daveNYC wrote: »
    Czech elections are tomorrow and Saturday. The lower house of Parliament (the Chamber of Deputies) only, all 200 seats are up for grabs. They are the house that will form the actual government, so PM is on the table too.

    The players:
    ANO - 78 seats currently. The current PM, Babiš, is their man. Second richest guy in the country, supposedly has no direct control over his financial empire at the moment. And would you like to purchase some New York City infrastructure on the cheap? He's also been busted for getting fat EU subsidies that he shouldn't have, and was named in the Pandora Papers as having bought a $22 million chateau on the French Riviera. The party itself is centre-right and has been dropping some quality racist rhetoric recently.

    ODS: Civic Democratic Party - 25 seats currently. Right wing conservative. Eurosceptics too. Joy. They're the marginally sane right-wingers though.

    Czech Pirate Party - 22 seats currently. You know the anti-copyright parties that cropped up around Europe back in the day? Well these guys got organized and came up with an actual platform and everything. Anti-corruption, pro-transparency, environmental, generally good stuff. They're pro-Euro though, which ain't great. A monetary union without a strong fiscal union no es bueno. Hilarious political ads too.

    SPD: Freedom and Direct Democracy - 22 seats currently. Their name has Freedom and Democracy in it, so they have to be good, right? Except, shocker, they're wankers. This is the AfD/Vox/UKIP equivalent. All the poop from a butt that you'd expect. Added bonus is that the leader is the son of a Japanese immigrant, not that hypocrisy has ever slowed any of these types down before. Added bonus, they're looking to tap into the grumpiness over Covid prevention measures, vax passports and the like. So the usual xenophobic Nurgle cult.

    KSCM: Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia - 15 seats currently. They're also supporting the current government. The one lead by a corrupt billionaire. Yeah. Generally left wing, bigger with the old folks and those in smaller cities and towns. I'll give them some points for keeping the communist in their name, shows a level of commitment and/or bullheadedness that I can respect.

    Czech Social Democratic Party - 15 seats currently. They're social democrats. Mixed economy, welfare, progressive taxes (something that interestingly enough, the Czech Republic doesn't really have a lot of), pro EU.

    KDU-CSL: Christian and Democratic Union - Czechoslovak People's Party - 10 seats currently. Christian Democrats. The usual there too near as I can tell.

    Top 09. Pro EU. Deficit hawks.

    STAN: Starstove: Mayors and Independents - 6 seats currently. An interesting one, focused on localism. They're fans of more money and authority to local governments. They're teamed up this time around with the Pirates who are into decentralization too, among other policy similarities.

    Z: Green Party - 0 seats currently. European Greens.

    The game:
    Party-List Proportional Representation, D'Hondt method.
    Form a party, come up with a list of candidates, then the available seats are doled out to the parties based on their proportion of the vote, and those seats are then given to the peeps on the list. This specific flavor encourages larger parties and coalitions, still much better than FPTP.

    The teams:
    ANO: Running solo. Currently polling at 26%

    SPOLU: Civic Democratic Party, KDU-ČSL, and TOP 09. Currently polling at 21%.

    Pirate-STAN: Who it says on the tin. Currently at 18%.

    SPD: Also running alone. Currently at 11%.

    Everyone else, 5% or lower.

    The last poll I can find was on the 30th of September, so no idea what impact the Pandora Papers have had on things.

    The fly in the ointment is that the President, noted professional self-embalmer, and man whose main goal in life is to have his BAC equal his age, Miloš Zeman is buddy-buddy with Babiš. This matters because he decides who gets a shot at forming a government and back when the Pirate-STAN alliance was leading ANO in the polls, he said that the chance to form a government should go to the largest party, not the largest alliance. So potential shenanigans are on the horizon.

    There's also the fun fact that the SPD has already indicated that their loyalty is purchasable for the low low price of a Czexit referendum.

    So turn in on Sunday Sunday Sunday to see how things turn out.

    How are these parties with the rights of QUILTBAG+? The eastern part of the Republic shares has flirted with "gay-free zones" and the likes, but I wonder if it is as much of a problem as it is in Poland and Hungary?

    Couldn't tell you about the specific party platforms on the subject, other than the Pirates are pretty good. Generally speaking I haven't hear about any party going deep on homophobia and related bigotries. Not that things are all peachy, just that the country is ludicrously secular, so it's lacking that base there to build on and the scary Muslim hoards are the super easy low hanging fruit if you're courting the bigot vote. There's also the usual where the LGB portion is doing better than the T, exemplified when Zeman said the following back in April.
    "I can understand gays, lesbians and so on," the 76-year-old said. "Do you know who I don't understand at all? The transgender ones... every surgery is a risk and these transgender people to me are disgusting."

    If it makes you feel any better, here's a story about a local artist giving him the finger back in 2013.

    Zeman is such a piece of shit.

    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
  • EchoEcho ski-bap ba-dapModerator mod
    SanderJK wrote: »
    The EU did make it easier to defund, which is going to be their modus operandi from now on. It already happened once, regions of Poland were refused Corona aid because they declared themselves "LGBT free zones." Last I heard, all but 2 have since reversed that decision.

    Poland is also by quite a hefty margin the top country when it comes to net gains from EU funding.

    7spmu8j8uqmu.png

  • SanderJKSanderJK Crocodylus Pontifex Sinterklasicus Madrid, 3000 ADRegistered User regular
    That's the stupidest part of this. Poland almost certainly benefited the most from quickly joining the EU. Its economy has skyrocketed, a ton of Poles work in western europe and send money home. Not to say that there aren't problems with that (for instance, the transport sector and slaughterhouses are a deregulated mess, and there are a ton of poles working in construction without paying taxes, at least over here, undercutting the firms that do pay taxes and normalizing it as "just a thing you do")

    Steam: SanderJK Origin: SanderJK
  • CornucopiistCornucopiist Registered User regular
    SanderJK wrote: »
    That's the stupidest part of this. Poland almost certainly benefited the most from quickly joining the EU. Its economy has skyrocketed, a ton of Poles work in western europe and send money home. Not to say that there aren't problems with that (for instance, the transport sector and slaughterhouses are a deregulated mess, and there are a ton of poles working in construction without paying taxes, at least over here, undercutting the firms that do pay taxes and normalizing it as "just a thing you do")

    Accessing the stupid and leveraging it to make people vote against their own interests is pretty much what nationalism is about...

  • [Expletive deleted][Expletive deleted] The mediocre doctor NorwayRegistered User regular
    SanderJK wrote: »
    The EU did make it easier to defund, which is going to be their modus operandi from now on. It already happened once, regions of Poland were refused Corona aid because they declared themselves "LGBT free zones." Last I heard, all but 2 have since reversed that decision.

    Still the veto powers are a huge block. If you think the US filibuster is bad, wait until you need a 27/27 or 26/27 majority on a vote.

    The expression (which I don't know if is universal) "polsk riksdag" (Polish parliament) springs to mind. It means "ungovernable assembly".

    During the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, all members of the national assembly (the Sejm) had veto powers. Veto also meant the Sejm had to disband. And when Russia, Prussia and Austria were eagerly avaiting the Partitions of Poland and willing to bribe MPs…

    Sic transit gloria mundi.
  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    Skipping past the Austrian news because essentially it's nothing we didn't already know about what kind of party FPÖ is and good lord I have no idea how to even summarize recent affairs.

    --

    Big pro-EU protests in Warsaw this evening (Donald Tusk was among the famous politicians calling for this). https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/q5bd2k/massive_proeu_protests_warsaw/ Really hope we won't see Poland leaving the EU, so it's good to see Polish people taking to the streets.

  • SmrtnikSmrtnik job boli zub Registered User regular
    Aldo wrote: »
    Skipping past the Austrian news because essentially it's nothing we didn't already know about what kind of party FPÖ is and good lord I have no idea how to even summarize recent affairs.

    --

    Big pro-EU protests in Warsaw this evening (Donald Tusk was among the famous politicians calling for this). https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/q5bd2k/massive_proeu_protests_warsaw/ Really hope we won't see Poland leaving the EU, so it's good to see Polish people taking to the streets.

    Elect someone else then geese

    steam_sig.png
  • JusticeforPlutoJusticeforPluto Registered User regular
    I don't see the contradiction. For all you know everyone there tried and failed to get others elected.

  • AldoAldo Hippo Hooray Registered User regular
    Smrtnik wrote: »
    Aldo wrote: »
    Skipping past the Austrian news because essentially it's nothing we didn't already know about what kind of party FPÖ is and good lord I have no idea how to even summarize recent affairs.

    --

    Big pro-EU protests in Warsaw this evening (Donald Tusk was among the famous politicians calling for this). https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/q5bd2k/massive_proeu_protests_warsaw/ Really hope we won't see Poland leaving the EU, so it's good to see Polish people taking to the streets.

    Elect someone else then geese
    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53385021

    Last presidential election was a runoff between 2 candidates splitting the vote 51/49. I assure you the people on the street did try to elect someone else. Duda uses the smallest margin of victory for extreme policies that will severely impact the country for generations to come.

  • [Expletive deleted][Expletive deleted] The mediocre doctor NorwayRegistered User regular
    Norway's largest newspaper printed a story today about a Belarussian comedian who's been declared persona non grata in Russia for "insulting an ethnic group" (Russians). Some time ago he had a TV appearance where he made jokes about how difficult it was to rent an apartment form him, since he has an Azerbajdanian surname (it's often specified "slavs only"). Three months later a Christian TV station started raising a stink, and now the unfortunate man is sentenced. He himself thinks it's because of an off-hand joke about a Putin-friendly oligarch (but I repeat myself).

    The newspaper printed the following commentary (my translation):
    A judge is leaving the court, laughing to himself. A colleague asks what's so funny.

    "I just heard the funniest joke I've ever heard," says the first.

    "Then you simply must tell me," says the second.

    "Can't. I just sentenced a man to 10 years for telling it."

    Sic transit gloria mundi.
  • daveNYCdaveNYC Why universe hate Waspinator? Registered User regular
    Czech election results:
    The Winners:

    SPOLU: Civic Democratic Party, KDU-ČSL, and TOP 09. 71 seats.

    ANO: Babiš' party. 72 seats.

    Pirate-STAN: Pirate Party and Mayors. 37 seats.

    SPD: Turbo racist assholes. 20 seats.

    The Losers:

    Everyone else. Seriously, nobody else got seats. The Social-Democrats and the Communists get to stay home and 'spend time with their family' or something until the next elections.

    The gripping hand:

    SPOLU and the Pirate-STAN alliance has already met and signed an agreement to form a government with each other and to definitely not form a government with anyone else. It's a 200 seat parliament and 71+37 is 108, so in theory that's the ballgame. ANO and Babiš are out of power and we can hopefully look forward to Babiš and his business empire being given over to the tender mercies of the justice department.

    Super Bonus Fun:

    Nothing is ever simple, so there is an interesting snag in the general plan of a SPOLU/Pirate-STAN government taking power and sorting things out. Zeman, the president, seems to be reaching the limits of his mortality. He's in the ICU at the moment and has had continuing health issues for a while, so this might be it, and certainly he's not in any real shape to continue presidenting at the moment. The fun comes in because it's his job to nominate someone to form the new government. He already said he was going to nominate the party with the most seats, which would be a non-starter since that'd be ANO and they can't get the numbers. There's also the bit that there's no vice-president exactly in the Czech Republic. There's various other positions that step in if he's incapacitated, but nobody who is straight up a backup president... and the fun from that is that those other positions are occupied by members of ANO. So there's that.

    Notable Stuff:

    First time since 1948 (or 1925, depending on how you're counting) with no Communists in parliament. 100th anniversary of the founding of the party too, nice timing guys.
    Pirates got 4 seats, down from 22. Big drop, not entirely sure what exactly to read into that though. From the polls looks like they cratered hard in the last week or so. Quite a change from actually being in the lead back in the spring.
    SDP were down about 10% of their support. Not super notable, but screw those guys.

    WTF Stuff:
    The Czech Crown party got 8,634 votes. So .16% of the population wants the restoration of the monarchy. I'd respect their derp more if they weren't backing a Hapsburg. If you want to go old school, go old school.


    So that's about it. Baring shenanigans, which likely won't work out, there's going to be a new government of the Czech Republic. Might even be getting a new president while we're at it.

    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
  • [Expletive deleted][Expletive deleted] The mediocre doctor NorwayRegistered User regular
    Today the newly elected Norwegian parliament (the 166th) is seated.

    The new government is still not ready, though, as negotiations are continuing. The expected three-party coalition (which would have had a combined absolute majority) is no more after talks broke down and one potential member (SV, socialists) left. The remaining two (AP, labor; SP, rural populists) are expected to come to an agreement soon(ish) and form a minority government. Latest news on that front is that the (prospective) government will not be seeking to leave the EEC (no big surprise there).

    Sic transit gloria mundi.
  • FiendishrabbitFiendishrabbit Registered User regular
    daveNYC wrote: »
    WTF Stuff:
    The Czech Crown party got 8,634 votes. So .16% of the population wants the restoration of the monarchy. I'd respect their derp more if they weren't backing a Hapsburg. If you want to go old school, go old school.

    Does their party program include renaming the Czech republic to "Constitutional Kingdom of Grand Bohemia"?

    "The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
    -Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
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