Tag Archives: Italy

News

Germany leans to the right as Angela Merkel sweeps election

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Story from the Globe and Mail. (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

The collapse of Europe’s left-leaning political consensus continued Sunday night as Germany’s Social Democrats ended 11 years in coalition governments with a crushing defeat at the hands of a conservative coalition that re-elected Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The vote makes Ms. Merkel the latest in a succession of conservative leaders to win strong support in formerly centre-left countries. Her conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) have governed Germany since 2005 in an awkward power-sharing coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD).

But last night’s vote allows her to form a broadly right-wing government with the libertarian Free Democrats (FDP), who campaigned on a tax-cutting platform.

[…]The risk is palpable. Similar centre-left parties in Italy and France have been driven to near-extinction by conservative votes in recent years, and European parliament elections this year saw nearly every country support a majority of centre-right candidates.

As if to drive the point home, last night also saw Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates, a stalwart of the moderate left, lose his parliamentary majority in a humiliating vote.

Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy are hawks on foreign policy. But what about Obama? Does he understand the dangerous world we live in, or is his mind still stuck in the ivory tower?

The Washington Times reports: (H/T Hot Air)

The military general credited for capturing Saddam Hussein and killing the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq says he has only spoken to President Obama once since taking command of Afghanistan.

“I’ve talked to the president, since I’ve been here, once on a VTC ,” General Stanley McChrystal told CBS reporter David Martin in a television interview that aired Sunday.

“You’ve talked to him once in 70 days?” Mr. Martin followed up.

“That is correct,” the general replied.

Maybe he should spend less time meeting with dictators, and more time with his own generals?

News

France, Germany and Italy warn G20 nations against Obammunism

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I was browsing over at the Anchoress and I found some very interesting links in her link-filled post here. She runs a blog that features a mix of Catholic-oriented reflections and a conservative perspective on the news of the day.

Here’s the part of her post that caught my attention:

Not good: First Putin told him not to, now France and Germany. Boy, didn’t the left HATE when Bush was this stubborn and set on his own way? And he didn’t listen to other countries? I seem to remember the left really, really hating that. About Bush. They hated these things too. When Bush did them.

Here is the warning from France and Germany from the Financial Times, via American Thinker:

Disagreements between the European Union and the US over how to combat the global recession widened on Tuesday as EU governments made clear they had little appetite for piling up more debt to fight the collapse in output and jobs.

Finance ministers from the 27-nation bloc insisted in Brussels that it was doing enough to support world demand and did not need at present to adopt another fiscal stimulus plan, as Washington is urging.

The US-European differences are casting a shadow over next month’s summit in London of leaders from the G20 group of advanced and emerging economies, an event to be attended by Barack Obama on his first visit to Europe as US president.

It’s true that France, Germany and Italy have all elected conservative leaders recently, (along with Japan, Canada, the Czech Republic and Mexico). I thought that these European socialist countries were to the left of the USA. Are we now to the left of France, Germany and Italy?

You might remember that I posted recently about former-communist Russia warning Obama about the dangers of socialism. Former-communist China also warned Obama to stimulate the economy with tax cuts, not spending. Instead, Obama raised taxes and spent trillions.

Canada, Japan and Mexico also elected conservatives governments. Why can’t we be more like them? Why do we have to embrace Obama’s unilateral, cowboy-communism? Why must Obama anger the world with unpopular economic policies that fail the “global test”? Why does Obama make the world hate us?