Trump Supporter Warns Of ‘Civil War’ If Ex-President Isn’t Reinstated

By Danielle Ong on June 30 2021

Former US president Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the nuclear deal

A supporter of Donald Trump on Saturday warned of a possible “civil war” if the former president isn’t reinstated by fall. 

During Trump’s first post-presidential rally in Ohio, CNN reporter Donie O’Sullivan interviewed several groups of supporters attending the event. While some promoted the former president’s unfounded claims of voter fraud, one person warned against civil war. 

"He's coming back soon, and you guys are going down. The military already knows it was a fraud. He won by over 80%,” Ron, a supporter in Wellington, told O’Sullivan. "He's coming back before the middle of August." 

"And what if that doesn't happen?" O’Sullivan asked. 

"We're going to be in a civil war because the militia will be taking over," Ron replied. 

O’Sullivan’s interview comes a week after John Cohen, the top counterterrorism official at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), warned several Congress members of a conspiracy theory claiming that Trump will be reinstated as president in August, three people familiar with the discussions told Politico. 

Trump has been telling a number of associates that he’ll return as the sitting president by August, according to The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman. Cohen said his staff is monitoring the activity in extremist communities, noting that the theories could lead to more violence. 

In an interview with David Brody for Just the News’ “Water Cooler” show last week, Trump repeated his claims that the November election was rigged and discussed the possibility of replacing President Joe Biden soon. 

"If the election was fraudulent, people are gonna have to make up their own mind. It's not gonna be up to me. It's gonna be up to the public. It's gonna be up to, perhaps, politicians. I don't think there's ever been a case like this where hundreds of thousands of votes will be found. So we'll have to see what happens,” he said. 

Sidney Powell, Trump’s ex-attorney, also echoed the former president’s claims of reinstatement at a QAnon conference in Dallas on May 30. 

"A new inauguration date is set, and Biden is told to move out of the White House, and President Trump should be moved back in," she said.

Former US president Donald Trump arriving at his first major rally since leaving the White House, one June 26 2021 in Wellington, Ohio
Photo: AFP / STEPHEN ZENNER

SOUTH AFRICA

Who is Thulani Dlomo, the elusive 'Zuma spy’?

Thulani Dlomo said he was ’pained and dehumanised’ to be called a ’Zuma spy’ after serving the country for more than 20 years. Picture: Facebook

By Sihle Mavuso, David Mohale 

Durban - Former head of counterintelligence at the State Security Agency (SSA) Thulani Dlomo has been in the news frequently over the past few years after it was alleged he swayed the country's intelligence apparatus in favour of former president Jacob Zuma who personally recruited him from a provincial government department in KwaZulu-Natal.

His name was again thrust into the spotlight early this week when a news portal claimed that he was one of the 12 people the State was investigating for their alleged role in stirring the unrest that saw looting and vandalism in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.

On Friday Dlomo publicly denied that he was involved. However, in a sudden twist, accompanied by his long-time lawyer, Philani Shangase, the former top spy went to the Durban central police station to meet with the police’s top brass. He left without being charged as his lawyer claimed there is no case registered against him in the database of the SAPS.

Dlomo said he was “pained and dehumanised” to be called a “Zuma spy” after serving the country for more than 20 years.

As South Africans wait to learn the identity of the 12 people who allegedly instigated what President Cyril Ramaphosa on Friday night labelled an insurrection, we look at five things we know about Dlomo’s background.

MORE ON THIS

• Former top spy Thulani Dhlomo surrenders to police after being fingered in unrest

• Axed former SSA top spy Thulani Dlomo speaks out on claims of his alleged involvement in KZN looting

• Unrest was a deliberate, co-ordinated and well-planned attack on SAs democracy: Ramaphosa

Spooks are by nature secretive but Independent Media was able, during a rare sit-down interview it with him towards the end of October in 2019, to glean some background and insight into Dlomo’s private life.

1. Fast cars and dark clothes

Like a true spy who is always ready to show he pursers a clean pair of heels, Dlomo likes fast German cars. It appears that his favourite brand is Audi and he prefers automatic. He likes wearing dark sunglasses, leather jackets and hats and prefers living in quiet neighbourhoods with high walls and a slew of surveillance cameras, as seen in one of his heavily fortified homes in Durban.

Black seems to be his favourite colour as he is always spotted in social media pictures and in public in clothes of the colour. He describes himself as a “leader, change agent, author, top spy“.

2. A product of the KGB

Like most former Umkhonto we Sizwe operatives integrated after 1994, Dlomo – whose roots, according to those who worked with him in exile is Richmond, are in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands – got the finest training from the KGB, the famed Soviet Union spy agency that gave the US tough times during cold war. It is said he was trained in Russia and East Germany, and specialised in espionage and civic surveillance modules.

3. A stint at the Department of Social Development

Before Dlomo moved to Pretoria to work for the SSA, he worked as the head of security for the Department of Social Development in KwaZulu-Natal. Those who know him closely say his “rare skills” attracted the attention of former president Jacob Zuma such that when Zuma took power in early 2009, he recruited him. Zuma was not comfortable with relying on spies left by the Thabo Mbeki administration as they were allegedly hostile to him, so he brought in the likes of Dlomo and other former MK operatives he had worked with while in exile. Although there was later a fallout with some of them, like Moe Shaik and Jeff Maqetuka, the other spies Zuma brought along, Dlomo remained close to Zuma.

An MK operative living in one of the former coloured suburbs of Durban said what led to Dlomo being called a “Zuma spy” was both professional jealousy and the fear by “some anti-Zulu elements” that Zuma was engaging in “Zulufication of the security cluster” and Dlomo appeared to have the ear of Zuma at all times.

4. Author of The Encounter: Ambassador Thulani Dlomo

In the book, Dlomo says he was appointed South Africa's ambassador to Japan in 2017. That’s not all, Dlomo also says he joined the ANC aged 13 and later went to exile, only to return when the ANC was unbanned and started operating as a legal body. On his return, he worked with leaders of the ANC to establish branches of the governing party in KZN at a time when the province was predominantly a stamping group of IFP.

According to his Facebook account, he wrote a second book titled Education: The Key Tool for Africa's growth.

5. SSA fired him for going AWOL after his recall from Japan

When Dlomo was recalled from his Japan posting, which he took on a secondment basis from the SSA, he allegedly failed to return to his post in Pretoria. That forced the SSA to first cut his salary and medical aid, and later fire him saying he had absconded from work without any reason. However, in an exclusive interview with IOL shortly after he was fired in October 2019, Dlomo and Shangase, his lawyer, said they provided a doctor’s note showing that he was not well. They vowed that they would challenge the sacking at the Durban labour court.

It is not known how far that case has gone.

Political Bureau

 SOUTH AFRICA

WARNING: Beaches north of Durban are closed due to chemical spillage

AERIAL photographs show the damaged shoreline of La Lucia. Pictures: Brian Spurr

By Staff Reporter

The EThekwini Municipality said on Saturday that beaches north of Durban are closed to the public until further notice.

“The EThekwini Municipality with advice from KZN Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs (EDTEA) and Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife has decided to close the beaches north of uMgeni estuary due to the environmental and potential human health impacts of a chemical spillage into the Umhlanga Lagoon

This means that the he closure would affect Beachwood, Virginia, Glenashley, La Lucia, Umhlanga Main and Bronze, Umdloti, La Mercy and Tongaat beaches, and it should be noted that the closure is inclusive of tidal pools.

“Authorities are engaging with other local municipalities further north as a precautionary measure,” according to a statement.

The public are advised to avoid the beach area at this time until it is deemed safe.

According to the KZN municipality, “extensive environmental impacts are being reported at uMhlanga and uMdhloti Lagoons and beaches in the vicinity, that have killed numerous species of marine and bird life”.

VERY SERIOUS

“The pollution is considered serious and can affect one’s health if species are collected and consumed. Lagoon and seawater contact must be avoided.”

“As such, the public is advised to cease all activity on the above-mentioned beaches.”

CLEAN UP

The statement noted, that clean up companies are trying to deal with the spill, which originated from a chemical warehouse fire in Umhlanga, following this past week's unrest.

It should be noted that other potential pollution sources are being investigated. Authorities are monitoring the situation closely.

Some residents in areas north of Durban are also reporting smoke residue from the already burned chemical products. The public can only smell it from time to time depending on the wind direction as it dissipates. Residents are advised to close windows and doors and put wet cloths over vents until smoke clears as a precautionary measure.

Please report any further pollution in the waterways or sea to the Emergency number 031 3610000.

IOL NEWS

 SOUTH AFRICA

Looting fires poison lagoon

Dead fish and crustaceans wash up on Umdloti Beach on Thursday.

By Duncan Guy 

eThekwini Municipality has closed its beaches north of the uMngeni River estuary after water contaminated with dangerous chemicals when firefighters had doused a blaze at a factory that had become prey to last week’s looting and arson washed into the ocean.

South African Association for Marine Biological Research conservation strategist Judy Mann told the Independent on Saturday that many young fish that would have used the lagoon as a nursery had died.

Species include spotted grunter, perch, tilapia, mullet, moonies, blacktail as well as crayfish and octopus from the surf zone.

“The closure will affect Beachwood, Virginia, Glenashley, La Lucia, uMhlanga Main and Bronze, Umdloti, La Mercy and Tongaat beaches, inclusive of tidal pools. Authorities are engaging with other local municipalities further north as a precautionary measure,” the city said in a statement.

“The public is advised to avoid the beach area at this time until it is deemed safe.”

According to the city, extensive environmental effects are being reported at uMhlanga lagoon and beaches in the vicinity and these have contributed to killing numerous species of marine and bird life.

“The pollution is considered serious and can affect one’s health if species are collected and consumed. Lagoon and seawater contact must also be avoided.”

The pollution, reported to have also caused a massive stench, shocked beachgoers, fishermen and surfers.

“Some residents in areas north of Durban are also reporting smoke residue from burned chemical products,” the city said.

“The public can only smell it from time to time depending on the wind direction as it dissipates. Residents are advised to close windows and doors and put wet cloths over vents until smoke clears as a precautionary measure.”

It is believed that people tried to close off the uMhlanga estuary into which it had flowed, having come down the uMhlanga River.

Oceanographer Lisa Guastella said the lagoon had opened on Tuesday.

“The problem will be the next flush of rain, which could bring down more (pollution). There is probably more in the water system.”

Guastella would have preferred it had the estuary been blocked, which would have prevented the sea from being polluted, saying it had been “sacrificed anyway”.

However, she said the pollution now appeared to be being diluted in the sea in slow-moving northward currents.

A scientist said that given that the lagoon was already open, sending the bulk of the water out to sea, not blocking the lagoon entrance was “the lesser of two evils”, adding that further pollution would have affected a delicate ecosystem in a protected area.

The Independent on Saturday

 

Moïse Assassination: Haitian American Assembled Security Team For When He Took Over Power

By Marvie Basilan on July 16 2021 

Demonstrators pray and demand justice outside of the Presidential Palace in Port-au-Prince on July 14, 2021, in the wake of Haitian President Jovenel Moise's assassination on July 7, 2021. New details about Sanon's alleged plans for his political career have emerged.

A Haitian-American who was arrested in relation to the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse rounded up a security team to protect himself until he took over the administration, documents from a meeting revealed, according to a report.

In an unsigned draft consulting agreement obtained by The Washington Post, it was revealed that Florida-based Christian Emmanuel Sanon wanted CTU Security and Worldwide Investment Development Group to assemble a private security team to protect him until he became the country’s president.

The draft, which circulated on June 22, revealed that the 63-year-old physician would pay his private security team using Haiti’s assets, the report said.

CTU Security is owned by Antonio “Tony” Intriago, while Worldwide Investment Development Group is owned by Walter Veintemilla, both are suspects in Moïse’s assassination.

The draft is part of a proposal with a budget of $83 billion that envisioned how Haiti will be ruled once Sanon takes over. The billion-dollar proposal was presented during a May 12 meeting, The Washington Post reported.

Sanon’s stated mission during the meeting was to turn “Haiti into a free and open society,” as revealed by Parnell Duverger, who attended the presentation in Fort Lauderdale.

Haitian officials who are investigating the Moïse assassination said Sanon had been conspiring with other suspects to take part in the plot to seize power, the New York Times reported.

The suspects reportedly said the gatherings in the months leading to the Haitian president’s killing were held to determine how Haiti will be rebuilt after Moïse steps down.

Two attendees said the meetings that focused on Sanon’s political career did not involve plans to overthrow the Moïse administration through violence.

However, Colombian and Haitian authorities said Sanon, who is also a self-proclaimed pastor, had a different plan in mind, which ultimately led to the shooting of Moïse in his home last week.

During the weekend arrest of Sanon, Haitian police chief Léon Charles said officers found boxes of bullets, four Dominican Republican license plates, and gun holsters, and two vehicles when they raided Sanon’s Port-au-Prince home, TIME reported.

Officers also found evidence of communication with people allegedly involved in the plot, Charles said. The people in question have not been identified.

A friend of Sanon who resides in Florida told The Associated Press that the latter was approached by people claiming to be representatives from the U.S. State and Justice Departments.

The friend who spoke on condition of anonymity said Sanon told him that the scheme involved Moïse’s arrest, not his killing. Sanon reportedly said he would not have agreed to get involved in the plot if he was told of the assassination.

Haitian authorities continue to investigate the killing of Moïse, who was gunned down in his home. His wife, Martine Marie Etienne-Joseph, incurred injuries during the shooting.

Haitian police said they have killed at least three suspects in relation to the assassination, while more than 20 others have been taken into custody.

Representatives to the United Nations observe a minute of silence in tribute to slain Haitian President Jovenel Moise
Photo: UNTV

Here’s the disturbing reason conservatives are hopelessly addicted to their own stupid COVID-19 lies

Amanda Marcotte, Salon
July 16, 2021

Fox News host Tucker Carlson (Screenshot)

On Thursday, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy did something no surgeon general has done before: He issued a warning — not about what people are consuming with their bodies — but with their minds.

"I am urging all Americans to help slow the spread of health misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond," Murthy asked in the health advisory titled "Confronting Health Misinformation." At a White House press conference Thursday, Murthy reserved his harshest criticism for tech companies, who he said "allowed people who intentionally spread misinformation — what we call disinformation — to have extraordinary reach" and whose algorithms are "pulling us deeper and deeper into a well of misinformation." White House press secretary Jen Psaki said: "We've increased disinformation research and tracking within the Surgeon General's Office. We are flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation."

This advisory may not seem like it, but it's a very big deal.

From the highest levels of the federal government, such a warning is an official recognition of how, now that vaccines are widely available, COVID-19 spreading should be understood more as a social phenomenon than a biological one. Murthy also wisely centered how much this false information is being deliberately spread by bad actors and zeroed in on the fact that the tech companies are letting lies spread on social media because it's profitable to do so.

But that last point really underscores why the spread of disinformation is such a sticky problem, and why fact-checking and better health information is probably not enough to convince people, especially Republicans, to get vaccinated. Misinformation isn't really the cause of people refusing the COVID-19 vaccination. It's just the excuse people are wielding to justify an extremely stupid choice to risk their own health to demonstrate their tribalist loyalties to the Republican Party and their hatred of the Democrats. In this particular chicken-and-egg situation, the rejection of the vaccine comes first, and the lies are spread to rationalize a decision that's already been made.

In much of the media coverage of anti-vaxxers, the tendency is to frame them as passive victims of misinformation, as if they saw some scare story on Facebook about vaccine dangers and decided, based on that, to reject the vaccine. The Washington Post, for instance, published a piece on Thursday about the COVID-19 outbreak in Springfield, Missouri, which is happening because of widespread rejection of vaccines in the area. Folks who spoke to the reporters had a million excuses for why they weren't vaccinated yet, and all were presented in the article at face value. One 30-year-old man claims he's safe because he "works an overnight shift at Walmart and has little interaction with other employees or customers." Another (who died of COVID-19) was "worried about side effects as a result of her complicated medical history." Another who is "pregnant with their second child, declined to get vaccinated because she wasn't sure how the shots would affect the pregnancy." But her husband, who is not pregnant, insisted he also didn't need the vaccine because "it's no worse than the flu," which is something that health experts also recommend vaccinating against annually.

I'm not a mind reader, but let's face it: This is honking nonsense. Folks aren't getting vaccinated because they have real concerns. It's because they live in right-wing America and have been made to feel that getting the vaccine is disloyal to Donald Trump, disloyal to Fox News, and above all else, a great way to stick it to the liberals. That's why political affiliation predicts anti-vaccination sentiment better than pretty much any other factor. What the Washington Post reporters diligently recorded from these Missouri anti-vaxxers was not reasons, but rationalizations. And that, more than any other factor, is why misinformation about vaccines is so wildly popular on social media.

People, especially conservatives, love reading and sharing lies that justify their worldview. And, by and large, they aren't too concerned about the moral implications of lying or spreading lies. On the contrary, the widespread victim mentality on the right allows many of them to feel justified in spreading lies, as it feels like some sort of payback to know-it-all liberals.

Murthy is right that lies tend to be profitable for social media companies and this is why: Lies are in strong demand, especially on the right. Conservatives who share this stuff aren't passive consumers. They tend to reward people who tell them lies, which is why someone like Tucker Carlson has such high ratings and only gets more popular the more full of shit he is.

A recent study out of MIT confirms this frustrating reality about why people spread misinformation. Researchers fanned out on Twitter, looking for people sharing "any one of 11 frequently repeated false news articles." With excruciating politeness, the researchers corrected the false information, with replies like, "I'm uncertain about this article — it might not be true. I found a link on Snopes that says this headline is false," with a link to the true information.

How did people react to being politely corrected?

Not like folks who mean well and are embarrassed at being caught mistakenly spreading a falsehood, that's for sure. Instead, as researcher Mohsen Mosleh noted, "they retweeted news that was significantly lower in quality and higher in partisan slant, and their retweets contained more toxic language." In other words, people know that what they're sharing online is garbage. They just don't care, and, in fact, they will double down as a defensive reaction if they're called out for it.

As the researchers found, this problem was shared across partisan identities, which shouldn't be surprising to anyone who has gently tried to correct a progressive friend who is a fan of some of the more noxious #resistance grifters out there. But there should also be no doubt that the misinformation problem is much worse on the right, as other research has consistently shown. And when it comes to misinformation about vaccine safety, it's almost exclusively a right-wing problem.

So Murthy is right that social media companies need to do more to crack down on misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine spreading rampantly on their platforms. Putting little disclaimers on posts that send people to the CDC website ain't it. That would work if people were sharing bad information in good faith, and were open to being gently corrected by more scientifically sound information. But the reason that lies perform well on social media is not that people are being duped, but because people — especially conservatives — love lies and gobble them down like candy. The only thing that will work is cutting them off entirely.

Misinformation is not the cause of anti-vaccination sentiment, but that doesn't mean that stopping lies is a waste of time.

Conservatives are using these vaccination lies — like propaganda is generally used — to stiffen their resolve, reaffirm their tribal identity, and develop talking points to bat away concerns from relatives and friends who are trying to get them to protect their health. Understanding how such misinformation functions is crucial to combat its effect. The real issue here is that vaccines are being talked about in ways that are politicized and emotional, instead of as a banal bit of health care. As long as getting the vaccine is associated with liberalism, huge swaths of the country will be dug in against doing it. Crushing misinformation is crucial, but only part of what needs to be a larger effort to de-politicize the COVID-19 pandemic.

One Mutation May Have Set the Coronavirus Up to Become a Global Menace

Posted By Erin Garcia de Jesus, Science News on Fri, Jul 16, 2021

• Courtesy University Hospitals
• The mutation led the virus get a stronger lock on human cells

A single change in a key viral protein may have helped the coronavirus behind COVID-19 make the jump from animals to people, setting the virus on its way to becoming the scourge it is today.

That mutation appears to help the virus’ spike protein strongly latch onto the human version of a host protein called ACE2 that the virus uses to enter and infect cells, researchers report July 6 in Cell. That ability to lock onto the human cells was stronger with the mutated virus than with other coronaviruses lacking the change. What’s more, the mutated virus better replicates in laboratory-grown human lung cells than previous versions of the virus do.

“Without this mutation, I don’t think the pandemic would have happened like it has,” says James Weger-Lucarelli, a virologist at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. The coronavirus’s global spread might have been less likely, he says.

Where exactly the coronavirus came from is still a mystery that researchers are trying to unravel (SN: 3/18/21). But figuring out how an animal virus gained the ability to infect people could help researchers develop ways to prevent it from happening again, such as with antivirals or vaccines, Weger-Lucarelli says.

The new findings hint that the mutation is important, but “it’s potentially one of multiple” changes that made the jump from animals to people possible, says Andrew Doxey, a computational biologist at the University of Waterloo in Canada who was not involved in the study. “It’s not necessarily the only mutation.”

Virologist Ramón Lorenzo Redondo agrees. The researchers employed an approach that is not typically used for viruses, says Redondo, of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. That means the method may have overlooked other important mutations.

In the study, Weger-Lucarelli and colleagues analyzed more than 182,000 genetic blueprints of the coronavirus, looking for signs of mutations that might have helped the virus adapt to and spread among humans. The team compared changes in the building blocks, or amino acids, of the virus’ spike protein with four coronaviruses from bats or pangolins that don’t infect people. The scientists pinpointed one swap that replaced the amino acid threonine that is found in the animal viruses with the amino acid alanine that is found in the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

The researchers predict that the mutation, named T372A, removes some sugars that coat the spike protein. Those sugars might be “getting in the way,” Weger-Lucarelli says, so removing them gives the virus better access to ACE2 to break into cells.

Experiments suggest that’s true. Once a virus with an alanine gets into laboratory-grown human lung cells, it replicates more than versions with threonine, the team found. In the future, the researchers plan to explore the role other mutations might have played to help an animal virus adapt to humans.

It’s unclear when the virus acquired the T372A mutation, says Arinjay Banerjee, a virologist with the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, who was not involved in the study. A bat coronavirus with a threonine at that spot may have infected people first and then rapidly adopted an alanine, helping the virus transmit more efficiently among people. Or it’s possible that the alanine appeared in bats or in another animal before making the jump.

“Those questions, I think, are still outstanding,” Banerjee says.

Originally published by Science News, a nonprofit newsroom. Republished here with permission.

Tags: Covid-19, Coronavirus, Image

Did Climate Change Cause This?

Flood Disaster Could Become a Major Issue in German Election

This week's devastating floods in western Germany could very well bring climate change to the forefront of the country's national election. 

A similar weather disaster in 2002 tipped the ballots.

By Anna Clauß, Lukas Eberle, Christoph Hickmann, Martin Knobbe, Timo Lehmann, Julia Merlot, Gabriel Rinaldi und Jonas Schaible

DER SPEIGAL
16.07.2021

Bild vergrößern
Devastation in Walporzheim: A force so strong it could only be a force of nature.

 Foto: David Klammer / laif / DER SPIEGEL

Perhaps at the end of Germany's current election campaign, the candidates will be asked this: Where were you on Thursday, July 15? What did you do, what didn’t you do, and what did you say? Perhaps this Thursday will go down as the day that changed everything, or at least a lot of things, and when nature rendered any kind of campaign planning worthless. Perhaps this Thursday was the day the real campaigning began. The day after the storm, after the flood.

DER SPIEGEL 29/202

The article you are reading originally appeared in German 

in issue 29/2021 (July 17th, 2021) of DER SPIEGEL.SPIEGEL International

On Thursday, Armin Laschet, the chancellor candidate for the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) visited the city of Hagen and the town of Altona, where he appeared in rubber boots on a flooded street and promised quick help.

Olaf Scholz, the candidate for the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), was on vacation in the Allgäu region of the Alps. He cut his holiday short to travel to Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler in the disaster region, where he called for greater climate protection measures.

Annalena Baerbock, the Green Party candidate was also on vacation, but her party wouldn’t say exactly where. She issued a press release calling for quick, unbureaucratic help, and had a spokesperson announce she was now coming home early from vacation

It will take a few weeks before we know what was right and what was wrong, what had an effect and what didn’t. In any case, the consequences of the mass flooding on Thursday in Germany will reverberate for some time to come.

So, far the campaign running into the September election for Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, which will also determine who becomes Angela Merkel’s successor as chancellor, has been characterized by a disturbing imbalance. The issues at stake could hardly be greater: Most importantly, the climate crisis – and the question of how humanity can keep the planet habitable – demands answers. Instead, the debate has focused on the resumé of the Green Party candidate and passages in a book she wrote that appear to have been copied. And the fact that the CDU dressed up female employees at their party headquarters as policewomen or nurses and printed photos of them on posters. So far, the campaign has been petty and lacked the gravitas of an election of this importance.