Fresh after first round of elections, Germany's ruling parties seek to ban rising AfD conservative rivals

 

By Monica Showalter

What kind of a government tries to shut down its political opponents?

A night-haunted dictatorship, which is what Germany is descending into, the outcome of its COVID lockdowns, its migrant surge, its self-induced energy dependence, its enfeebled green economy, and its social wokery.

According to a German expat paper, the Munich Eye:

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution has classified the entire Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as confirmed right-wing extremist. This decision has prompted reactions from various political factions, with opposition parties such as the SPD, Greens, and Left Party welcoming the classification. In response, AfD leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla announced plans to take legal action against what they describe as damaging and politically motivated claims that threaten democracy.

Weidel and Chrupalla argue that the classification is an unjust attack on their party, asserting that it seeks to discredit them ahead of a potential governmental transition. They emphasize that the ruling represents a targeted effort to intervene in the democratic process and is fundamentally political in nature.

The classification was made public in Cologne, where the Office for the Protection of the Constitution cited the party's extreme positions as undermining human dignity and fostering an overall hostile attitude towards migrants and Muslims. This assessment reflects an ongoing concern regarding the party's ideological direction and its implications for German democracy.

In light of the new classification, Schleswig-Holstein's Minister President Daniel Günther (CDU) has voiced support for initiating a ban on the AfD, stating that their anti-constitutional stance has long been evident, especially as they are already recognized as right-wing extremist in three German states. He called for swift action by the federal government to protect democracy.

Former East Commissioner Marco Wanderwitz (CDU) echoed this sentiment, urging for a ban process to be initiated urgently. He stressed that the recent classification should serve as a clear indication of the AfD's threat to democratic values.

German after good German came out in favor of repressing the country's second-largest political party, whose map distribution can be seen here -- almost all of economically dreary East Germany went for AfD except for Leipzig and a part of Berlin that went for a party identified as "Left." Two pockets of western Germany -- Duisberg and Kaiserslautern, described in several reports as economically depressed rust-belt regions, also went for AfD.

What it looks like is an overbearing majority party -- the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, operating in tandem, are working to stomp out any embers of resistance to their longtime decadent rule, with significant failures to its record -- lost energy independence, the release of hordes of unvetted migrants from stone-age societies such as Afghanistan into their country, a failure to enforce crime laws, greenie regulations creating a lousy economy, capital flight and even the loss of old growth forests for wind farms, grotesque social trends favoring sexual perversions, and the COVID lockdown record which did so much damage to the quality of life.

Wokesterism has absolutely permeatede the society under their rule, extending to well beyond the state -- note that the German Catholic Church is financed through taxes on Catholics, making it a state organ, and now its outcome is the same as Lenin smashing churches and Hitler smashing synagogues, except that now, the nullification is from within:

“German” and “Catholic” no longer belong in the same sentence for this German sect. This must be opposed and denounced y the Cardinals gathered in Rome and every bishop around the world. https://t.co/IGphChUZ0j

— Bishop J. Strickland (@BishStrickland) May 2, 2025

AfD is a relatively new party, has been making steady gains in election after election, particularly among the youth, and now stands on the cusp of being entitled to some kind of coalition-level power as the next vote in the runoff beckons.

As the Munich Eye piece noted above:

Weidel and Chrupalla argue that the classification is an unjust attack on their party, asserting that it seeks to discredit them ahead of a potential governmental transition. They emphasize that the ruling represents a targeted effort to intervene in the democratic process and is fundamentally political in nature.

So it's obvious the German rulers want to join the tyranny trend in Western Europe, with France banning its leading candidate for office from running for president, and the U.K. jailing internet critics. They seem to want to outdo them all, because neither France nor the U.K. have sought to ban entire political parties, though they may be just upstream of it, heading for the falls, too.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, with customary courage, called them out for their anti-democratic activity:

Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy—it’s tyranny in disguise.

What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD—which took second in the recent election—but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies…

— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) May 2, 2025

He got this grotesque backtalk from some anonymous bureaucrat speaking mendaciously from behind the German government transom:

WOW! Look at the German Foreign Office’s direct response to Secretary Marco Rubio’s post 😲

It seems to me that the people who more align with “extremism” are the ones who are siccing their spies on their political opponents…🤷🏼‍♀️ pic.twitter.com/fSAFh53IVm

— MAGA Kitty (@SaveUSAKitty) May 3, 2025

Yes, either they are lying about German history or they really believe the National Socialist Party of Germany during the time of Hitler, with its fingers in every corporate pie and its murder of millions of Jews, was somehow right-wing. That would be the same German ruling parties that support Hamas and import millions of stone-age antisemitic migrants into their country -- the rulers of a country whose Jewish citizens are leaving. Who again, are the million little Hitlers?

Meanwhile, a corporate-state type (fascism, again, anyone?) from Germany stated this, which reflects a lot of the thinking of the German rulers:

Compare the statements by Dmitry #Medvedev and Marco #Rubio: What kind of a reality is this, when in parallel assaults against Germany's defence of democracy vis-à-vis AfD #extremism Putin's violent attack dog Medvedev sounds moderate as compared to Trump's Secretary of State? https://t.co/T5OVjqJqQj pic.twitter.com/jBTudHV1dk

— Reinhard Bütikofer (@bueti) May 2, 2025

Maybe it would help if Germany's rulers didn't act like Nazis to start with, give Putin ammunition, you fool

It's a terrible slide downhill for this once most admired and efficient of nations, the touchstone of prosperity and the example for all. Now it's moving hard towards dictatorship, a really ugly one directed at the powerless young people and the economically run down parts of the country.

When President Trump questions the value and money-pit expense of NATO, it's very likely the fact that these countries are rapidly slipping into tyrannies that makes them so unworthy of America's defense. Should we be defending countries with these values, countries that can no longer change course because they have banned their opponents? That have stomped out the aspirations of their young and turned foreign rapists loose on them? Or should we tell them they're on their own, we don't expend billions to defend satrapies and tyrannies against, what, other tyrannies? It makes no sense to defend countries that have decided to become tyrannies.

We are not the same.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/05/fresh_after_a_first_round_of_elections_germany_s_ruling_parties_seek_to_ban_their_rising_afd_conservative_rivals.html

Bunge's $34 billion Viterra merger stalled by US-China trade rift, Bloomberg reports

 Bunge Global's $34 billion merger with Glencore-backed Viterra is being stalled by trade tensions between the United States and China, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

"We are in the final stage of regulatory approval. We express our continued gratitude for the constructive dialogue with Chinese government officials throughout the regulatory review process," Bunge told Reuters in an emailed statement.

The merger was first announced in 2023. If finalized, it will create a global crop trading and processing giant closer in scale to chief rivals Archer-Daniels-Midland and Cargill.

Regulatory approval in China is among the last remaining hurdles to the deal's closing.

Bunge has said it has obtained most global approvals required for the merger - which was initially expected to close in mid-2024 - including in the European Union and Canada.

Bunge executives and advisers are growing increasingly concerned that the political rift between the two countries will hold up the process further, according to the report.

Bunge CEO Greg Heckman traveled to China a number of times for talks with the authorities, the Bloomberg report said. It also said Chinese regulators have flagged concerns that the merger would increase industry concentration and potentially impact Beijing's food security interests.

The relevant regulators are conducting a careful compliance review given the deal's significance, according to the report.

Viterra did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/bunge-s-34-billion-viterra-merger-stalled-by-us-china-trade-rift-bloomberg-reports/ar-AA1E3XDw

Ukraine Can't Ensure Safety of Xi Jinping, Other Leaders in Moscow—Zelensky

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has referred to the security measures surrounding foreign dignitaries attending a parade in Red Square next week marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.

Days after he was accused of threatening to disrupt the Victory Day parade event in Moscow, Zelensky told reporters Kyiv "cannot be responsible" for what happens on Russian territory during the commemorations which will be attended by China's president Xi Jinping and other leaders.

Zelensky mentioned no names and offered no further details but his comments follow his earlier remarks that Russia was worried about what might happen during the event and a warning by the European Union urging its leaders not to attend.

Newsweek has contacted the Russian and Chinese foreign ministries for comment.

Under Vladimir Putin's presidency, the May 9 event marking the defeat of Nazi Germany has become an annual demonstration of Russian patriotism which has gathered resonance following his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Leaders of former Soviet countries and allies such as China typically attend, and for this year's 80th anniversary, Putin called for a three-day ceasefire which Zelensky has rejected. Zelensky's latest comments add to speculation over what Ukraine might do during the period.


Zelensky said last week the Kremlin was worried that the parade was in danger, prompting Moscow to accuse Ukraine of planning an attack to coincide with the event.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov played down Zelensky's remarks and said that Russians would watch the televised event with pride.

But the Ukrainian leader returned to the topic, telling journalists that unnamed countries had asked Kyiv about the safety of going to Moscow for the event but that Ukraine cannot be responsible for what happens on Russian territory.

He referred to how arson and explosions could be blamed on Ukraine, but Kyiv would not be responsible for what might happen.

Zelensky also dismissed Putin's offer of a three-day ceasefire, reiterating Kyiv's calls for a 30-day pause as proposed by the U.S.


His remarks follow a warning by the European Union's top diplomat Kaja Kallas for European leaders not to participate in the celebrations and show solidarity with Ukraine instead, according to Politico.

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said in a Telegram post on Saturday that no one was asking for Zelensky's guarantees, but if his "provocations" are realized "nobody will guarantee the dawn of May 10 in Kyiv."


As well as Xi, the leaders of more than 20 countries are expected to attend, including Putin's allies, Alexander Lukashenko, and Nicolas Maduro, the leaders of Belarus and Venezuela respectively.

Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vuhttps://www.newsweek.com/russia-zelensky-ww2-parade-2067648čić, whose country is bidding for EU membership, has also been invited. The only EU leader accepting an invitation was Slovakia's prime minister Robert Fico.

The Kremlin confirmed this week that India's prime minister Narendra Modi, whose country has increased economic ties over the last three years, would not attend.

Russian state media had reported that a high-level U.S. official would attend, naming Secretary of State Marco Rubio although the U.S. State Department told Newsweek on Thursday there were no travel plans in place.


Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, per Ukrainian media, according to a translation: "We cannot be responsible for what is happening on the territory of the Russian Federation. They provide you with safety and so we will not give you any guarantees."

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council on Telegram: "Who is looking for his guarantees? Just a verbal provocation. Nothing more … in the event of a real provocation on Victory Day, no one will guarantee that May 10 will come in Kyiv."

As Moscow gears up for the May 9 parade where Russian military hardware will be on show, Ukraine has asked EU officials to come to Kyiv on the same day to display diplomatic force of its allies.

https://www.newsweek.com/russia-zelensky-ww2-parade-2067648

Texas governor signs largest US school voucher law

 Texas will implement a $1 billion school voucher program, one of the largest in the country, that uses public dollars to fund private school tuition under a bill Gov. Greg Abbott signed Saturday, capping off a yearslong effort by Republicans.

School voucher supporters have long targeted the state, where past efforts buckled for decades against resistance from Democrats and rural Republicans. Last month President Donald Trump called lawmakers before a key vote needed to finally get the bill to Abbott’s desk.

Texas joins more than 30 other states that have implemented a similar program, of which about a dozen have launched or expanded their programs in recent years to make most students eligible.

School vouchers have been Abbott’s primary focus this year, coming off a 2024 election cycle in which he led a campaign to oust GOP lawmakers who voted against a similar bill last session.

Republican lawmakers and bill supporters say it will give parents more choice by letting them pull their children out of poor-performing public schools.

“Gone are the days that families are limited to only the schools assigned by government,” Abbott said before signing the bill at the governor’s mansion. “The day has arrived that empowers parents to choose the school that is best for their child.”

Democrats and Republicans in rural districts have criticized the program, saying it will drain financial resources from Texas’ more than 5 million public school students and subsidize the private education of wealthy families.

Beginning next school year, Texas families can receive $10,000 per year to help pay for students’ private school tuition. Children with disabilities can qualify for as much as $30,000 a year. The program will be capped at $1 billion for the first year and cover up to 90,000 students but could cost up to $4.5 billion a year by 2030.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/texas-governor-signs-1-billion-voucher-bill-milestone-121435049

Short Sellers Bet Against Private Credit Lenders

 

Hedge funds are betting that trade wars, a shrinking economy and rising strain among borrowers will begin to hit private credit in the US. So far, the gamble’s paying off.

Short sellers have made about $1.7 billion on paper so far this year from wagers against seven of the biggest direct lenders, including Apollo Global Management Inc., Ares Management Corp. and Blue Owl Capital Inc., according to data compiled by S3 Partners LLC.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-03/short-sellers-bet-against-private-credit-lenders-credit-weekly

CAR T-Cell Therapy for Autoimmune Disease Comes With Side Effects

 

• Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy has been an exciting area of development for autoimmune disease treatment.
• Previous reports had not mentioned any particular constellation of adverse effects as being common with the treatment.
• This report describes a usually mild syndrome, dubbed LICATS, affecting about three-quarters of CAR T-cell recipients.

Researchers said they identified a particular set of adverse effects in autoimmune disease patients treated with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy.

The syndrome involves transient reactions in the organs originally targeted by the autoimmune disease, according to Georg Schett, MD, of Friedrich-Alexander-Universität in Erlangen, Germany, and colleagues. Some three-quarters of patients undergoing the therapy have shown this syndrome -- mostly mild, resolving within a couple weeks without further incident, and probably reflecting the treatment's ultimately beneficial effects.

Schett's group, in a report appearing in The Lancet Rheumatologyopens in a new tab or window, called the syndrome "immune effector cell-associated toxicity syndrome" or LICATS.

"Knowledge about LICATS is crucial to prevent misinterpretation and unnecessary immunosuppression," the researchers wrote. "We therefore suggest LICATS as a new adverse event that should be assessed in future CAR T-cell trials in autoimmune disease."

Schett has been the prime mover behind use of CAR T-cell therapy -- first developed as a blood cancer treatment -- in autoimmune disease. An early report in 2022opens in a new tab or window indicated that it looked almost like a cure in five patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Several others have emerged since, with more patients and a wider range of autoimmune conditionsopens in a new tab or window, including systemic sclerosis (SSc) and inflammatory immune myositis (IIM). Nearly all patients have shown dramatic improvement, many no longer requiring conventional therapy, with remissions lasting as long as they've been followed.

Until now, these reports didn't include any suggestions of adverse effects occurring commonly with the therapy, in which patients' T cells are extracted and modified ex vivo to express receptor proteins that bind to a specific antigen on other cells that need to be eliminated. These transformed T cells are then reinjected into the patient, where they hunt down and kill the target cells (B cells thus far).

The new report covers 39 patients with SLE (n=20), SSc (n=13), and IIM (n=6) who have received CAR T-cell therapy from Schett's group. Of these, 30 developed symptoms that reflected "cleansing of immune cells from the affected organs," and were distinct from cytokine release syndrome, which typically includes systemic symptoms such as fever that did not appear in these patients.

Particular symptoms varied according to which organs were involved in the individual patients' disease. Thus, patients whose autoimmune condition had hit their muscles had muscle-related issues such as elevations in creatinine kinase. Patients with renal impairments showed transient worsening in kidney function, and so forth.

Schett and colleagues developed a grading system for LICATS in which symptoms that resolved without treatment was grade 1; symptoms calling for corticosteroid treatment was grade 2; LICATS requiring new or extended hospitalization was grade 3; and need for intensive care was grade 4.

No grade 4 events were seen and just three involved hospitalization and thus merited grade 3. In all, 65% of LICATS episodes were grade 1, and 30% reached grade 2. Median time to onset from CAR-T cell infusion was 10 days across all patients (interquartile range 9-21). Median duration was 11 days (IQR 5-14). Among patients given prednisolone for LICATS, the median cumulative dose was 172 mg (IQR 112-215).

While LICATS seemed different from cytokine release syndrome, the latter did occur in as many patients. This, too, never became serious.

LICATS appeared to develop during the period when the therapy had completely eliminated patients' B cells, indicating that the symptoms did not stem from disease flares. Biopsies from a few patients showed myeloid cells, an indication that "cleansing processes" were underway in the affected organs.

Why hasn't anything like LICATS been reported with CAR T-cell therapy in cancer patients? "It is possible that LICATS is an underreported phenomenon in hemato-oncology," Schett and colleagues offered, "but it could also be the case that LICATS indeed is less common following CD19-targeting CAR T-cell therapy of B-cell malignancies, as the organ distribution of malignant B cells follows other principles than the tissue infiltrates in B-cell driven autoimmune diseases."

In an accompanying commentaryopens in a new tab or window, two scholars from the University of California Los Angeles concurred that, on the basis of these findings, LICATS doesn't seem like a huge problem with CAR T-cell therapy in autoimmune disease.

Still, according to Samuel Good, MD, and Elizabeth Volkmann, MD, MS, "a number of questions and unresolved issues remain." These include a need for larger studies, in part to assess the potential for LICATS in critical organs such as the lungs to cause serious complications.

Good and Volkmann also called for future CAR T-cell studies in autoimmune disease to be run as controlled trials with comparator groups.

Disclosures

The study was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, German Cancer Aid, Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, European Union, Staedtler Foundation, Lupus Research Alliance, and the Bendel and Bleyl families.

Study authors reported relationships with a large number of pharmaceutical companies and other commercial entities.

Good declared he had no relevant financial interests. Volkmann reported relationships with Kadmon, GSK, Atyr Pharma, Boehringer Ingelheim, Horizon, Prometheus, and AbbVie.

Primary Source

The Lancet Rheumatology

Source Reference: opens in a new tab or windowHagen M, et al "Local immune effector cell-associated toxicity syndrome in CAR T-cell treated patients with autoimmune disease: an observational study" Lancet Rheumatol 2025; DOI: 10.1016/S2665-9913(25)00091-8.

Secondary Source

The Lancet Rheumatology

Source Reference: opens in a new tab or windowGood SD, et al "A new toxicity syndrome in patients with autoimmune disease treated with CAR T-cell therapy" Lancet Rheumatol 2025; DOI: 10.1016/S2665-9913(25)00100-6.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/rheumatology/generalrheumatology/115412

Hims & Hers short interest at critical levels after best weekly gain: report

 The short interest in Hims & Hers Health (NYSE:HIMS) has approached critical levels, financial data provider S3 Partners said on Friday after the telehealth firm's shares added ~45% this week, its best weekly gain, on the back of a partnership with obesity drugmaker Novo Nordisk (NVO).

HIMS’ rally followed more than a 50% selloff in the stock from a recent peak in February after the FDA declared an end to the shortage of Novo’s (NVO) GLP-1 therapy Wegovy, threatening the company’s compounding business targeting the popular weight loss drug.

HIMS “has seen sharp price swings and now faces a growing squeeze risk,” S3 Partners said, referring to a situation where short sellers, the group of investors who bet against a company’s share price, are forced to repurchase their shorted shares to exit their losing positions. A short squeeze can send the stock even higher, leading to even bigger losses for short sellers.

According to S3 Partners, Hims & Hers (NYSE:HIMS), which trades with over 33% of its floated stock shorted, indicated a squeeze score of 100 and a crowded score of 75, “meaning there is always the risk of a squeeze, which increases when the stock rises.”

Meanwhile, Wall Street has become increasingly skittish on HIMS' prospects in recent months, with the stock drawing two Sell ratings this year compared to no Sell ratings in October.

“With a highly volatile stock, rising short positions, and analyst sentiment turning bearish, HIMS represents a high-risk profile for both short and long positions,” S3 Partners wrote, adding, “The elevated squeeze score further complicates positioning.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/hims-hers-short-interest-at-critical-levels-after-best-weekly-gain-report/ar-AA1E6y0Z