German Election Podcast : What You Need To Know About Sunday's Vote

Germans head to the polls this Sunday to elect their next parliament. In our special election podcast, SPIEGEL ONLINE Editor-in-Chief Barbara Hans discusses issues that have shaped the campaign, Angela Merkel's prospects for a fourth term and the likelihood the far right will win seats.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-election-podcast-what-you-need-to-know-about-sunday-s-vote-a-1168535.html

https://soundcloud.com/user-6264341/bonus-episode-englisch-germanys-election-what-you-need-to-know

This Sunday, Germans will head to the polls to elect the next Bundestag, the country's national parliament, a vote that will also determine whether Angela Merkel will land a fourth term as the country's chancellor. It's an election that began with an air of excitement as Martin Schulz, Merkel's Social Democratic (SPD) challenger, returned from Brussels, where he had been the president of the European Parliament. Initially, it looked as though his candidacy could upend politics in Berlin, which has slumbered through four years of a Grand Coalition, pairing Merkel's conservatives with the center-left SPD that Schulz now leads.

After seeing his political fortunes soar early in the polls, Schulz lost traction following a series of losses for his party in state elections and a failure to score political points with his message of greater equality in Germany. It now appears that Merkel will easily cruise past the finish line and lead the next government in what many observers view as a vote for stability in these uncertain times of Trump and Brexit.

The election is also expected to see significant gains by the Alternative for Germany party, which is almost certain to become the first far-right party to win seats in parliament in postwar German history. The party has run an Islamophobic, anti-immigrant campaign that has cast light on an uglier part of the German political sphere and on a segment of the voting population that no longer feels represented by the country's mainstream parties. The AfD, whose campaign has taken its cue from the "alt-right" movement in the United States, is likely to bring a style of debate into parliament that the German political class has successfully fought off for decades.

As part of our coverage of the election, we have produced a special edition of SPIEGEL ONLINE's weekly "Stimmenfang" campaign trail podcast in English. SPIEGEL International's Charles Hawley and Daryl Lindsey sat down to discuss the election together with Barbara Hans, editor in chief of SPIEGEL ONLINE. We hope you enjoy it.

Here’s Why St. Louis Is Exploding

It doesn’t start or end with the acquittal of Jason Stockley.

Jamilah King

http://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2017/09/heres-why-st-louis-is-exploding/

St. Louis is reeling after another chaotic weekend of demonstrations against police violence. Outraged protestors took to the streets beginning on Friday, after Jason Stockley, a former St. Louis police officer, was acquitted on criminal charges related to the death of Anthony Lamar Smith. The protests, which included clashes with police, broken windows, and overturned trashcans, continued well into Monday, according to CNN. 

The case dated back to 2011, when Smith, a 24-year-old black man, was pursued by Stockley—a white police officer who is now 35 and lives in Texas—in a high speed car chase that ended with Stockley firing several shots, hitting Smith.  In 2016, the state of Missouri released a probable cause document outlining its case against Stockley. One line reads: “During the pursuit, the defendant [Stockley] is heard saying ‘going to kill this motherfucker, don’t you know it.'” 

Though the incident happened in 2011, Stockley wasn’t charged until 2016 after what prosecutors vaguely described as “new evidence” came to their attention. But St. Louis Circuit Judge Wilson acquitted Stockley of first degree murder on Friday. Shortly after the verdict was announced, in a move that likely incensed many observers, Stockley spoke publicly to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about the case, saying, “I did not murder Anthony Lamar Smith.” Then he added, somewhat paradoxically “It feels like a burden has been lifted, but the burden of having to kill someone never really lifts.”

What transpired in St Louis after the verdict is a scene that’s become all too familiar in cities across the country.

Protesters, mostly black, took to the streets to voice their outrage at yet another acquittal of a police officer charged with murdering a black citizen. In total, more than 80 people were arrested during the protests, with police officers at one point mocking the protesters by chanting, “Whose streets? Our streets!” while making those arrests. 

Stockley’s acquittal may have been the match that lit the fuse in St. Louis, but the protests were the result of anger at a history of indignities suffered by black communities over generations. In 2014, after 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by ex-officer Darren Wilson in neighboring Ferguson and that city exploded in righteous anger, the U.S. Department of Justice tallied the Ferguson police department’s interactions with the local, majority black community over several years. One finding was that Ferguson generated the bulk of its revenue from municipal fines that unfairly targeted black residents. 

But the most profound indignity of all has been the pace at which black people die at the hands of the police, and how seldom anyone is held accountable for those deaths. An investigation by the Guardian in 2015 found that young black men are nine times more likely to be killed by police than Americans of other races. But the Guardian also noted that convictions in such cases are rare.

Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, made the case to CNN earlier in 2017 that institutional bias runs incredibly deep in the criminal justice system. “At the end of day, officers in their badge and uniform enjoy the benefit of the doubt,” Clarke said. “But none of that should distract us from the root cause of the crisis we face … [which is] the racial bias that infects many aspects of policing in our country.”

Racial bias can be seen in some of the other cases where officers have been charged in relation to the deaths of unarmed black men and acquitted in 2017:

Year of incident: 2011

Officer: Jason Stokley

Victim: Anthony Lamar Smith, age 24, was shot after a high-speed chase in St. Louis.

Year of incident: 2015

Officer: Raymond Tensing

Victim: Sam DuBose, age 43, was shot and killed while driving on the University of Cincinnati campus. 

Year of incident: 2016

Officer: Betty Shelby

Victim: Terrance Crutcher, 40, was shot and killed after his vehicle stalled in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Year of incident: 2016

Officer: Jeronomi Yanez

Victim: Philando Castile, age 32, was shot and killed during a traffic stop in Minnesota. Video of his death went viral. 

The outrage on display in St. Louis did not start—or end—with the acquittal of Stockley. St. Louis police chief Lawrence O’Toole said in a news conference on Monday that law enforcement had regained control. “The city of St. Louis is safe and the police owned tonight,” O’Toole said of the Sunday night protests. He said later: “We’re in control. This is our city, and we’re going to protect it.”

Jamilah King

Jamilah King is a race and justice reporter at Mother Jones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7DFq23-jvc

Trump a 'Diplomatic Fiasco' at the UN

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