geissi

because the ever-increasing contributions to the Rentenversicherung and Krankenversicherung just eat up all of the brutto increases, leaving people with effectively the same netto.

I'm sorry, you might not mean that literally but too many people perpetuate the myth the taxes and or social security contributions eat up all wage increases or that people get even less due to higher taxes.
That is complete nonsense. The total tax and social security contribution would have to be at 100% for that to be true.

If you want people to be able to afford more with their money, then I'd advocate for lower VAT and/or dropping the VAT for basic foods and products to 0%. That wold also help the poor more, serve as a better social redistribution measure and could contribute to more domestic demand.

If we are not talking about taxes but social security then I agree that there need to be significant reforms.

lifting the minimum wage, which wouldn’t bring much at all in the big picture, instead of reducing the enormous amount of various taxes that has to be paid from everybody’s salary

Lifting the minimum wage directly impacts the available income of the lowest income classes, who in turn spend most of their income on consumption, increasing domestic demand and thus also helping the economy.
Also, higher minimum wage gives unions a better position to argue for higher wages for their members. That in turn can put pressure on the general non-unionized wage level through competition for qualified labor, which we are told is in such short supply ("Fachkräftemangel").

Reducing income tax on the other hand primarily benefits those who pay the highest income taxes, i.e. those with high income.
Those people can afford not to spend their entire income but will instead put some if not most of these gains into personal savings, which effectively removes the money from economic circulation and does not help the economy.
Also extremely low incomes do not even pay income tax and thus would not benefit at all.

tl,dr Higher mix wage is good for everyone (at least everyone who lives off labor) and primarily helps the poor, lower income tax is only good for some and primarily benefits those with high income.

None of the really "tax the rich".
Although I would argue that a higher general wage level can help redistribute wealth from the rich to the working class.

I meant the literal definition of Muslim, not just Islam.

And what is that supposed to be?
The English definition is a follower of Islam 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

If you take the translation from Arabic "someone in submission to the will and law of God” then I don't see how that would not apply to religious Jews as well.

So it would really help your argument if you could provide a source that shows any significant meaning of Muslim outside the context of Islam.

First he says all limitations are off the table

Tbf, he did not.

One of the many failings of Merz is, that he is a terrible communicator.
What he said was: "All range restrictions have been lifted", which was understood by most to be the announcement of a new policy change.
But actually he was just referring to something that had already happened half a year earlier under Scholz.

His defenders will point out, that what he said was factually true and that he did not announce anything new. But once again, Merz seems incapable of considering the context under which such questions are asked and how his words would be interpreted.

On this point, Donald is right

Huh, there is a lot to talk about here but for some reason Uschi being on a first name basis with Trump is the thing that immediately stuck out to me.

"Conservative" politicians do nothing but making working conditions in the country worse and and disparage immigrants and then wonder why nobody wants to come to Germany for work.

While I understand being skeptical, this article is terrible and provides next to no information about the issue.

So the EU wants to "resurrect", "breathe new life into", "revive" securitization? How? What changes are proposed? Which regulations are supposed to be dropped?

And while the practice may have aggravated the 2008 financial crisis, it was caused by the US subprime market, as the article itself mentions.

Brussels now wants to loosen the rules governing the practice, meaning banks would need to put aside less capital against the loans they trade, as well as easing due diligence and reporting rules around the practice. But the Commission insists enough safeguards will remain to protect against a repeat of 2008.

Again, what rules are supposed to be eased, what safeguard would remain?

There is no information here for us to judge how risky this actually is. We just have to trust Politico's word.
And quite frankly, I do not find Politico - part of the Axel Springer group - trustworthy enough.

So far, CO2 hasn’t been considered anything but a harmless byproduct but it’s one of the main drivers of global warming.

I mostly agree with you but "so far" is pretty generous considering that the effects of CO2 as a greenhouse gas has been known for over a century.

I think we should be aware of the framing the car industry has successfully introduced here.

The car industry and conservative politicians keep ranting about the "combustion ban" and proclaim that we should remain "technologically open" when in fact the opposite is true.

The regulations do not ban a specific technology nor do they codify which technology to use.
They just set emission targets. Car makers can use any technology that meets these targets. If they invent a miracle combustion engine without emissions they are free to build it.

Imho, we should not follow their framing and whenever someone talks about keeping combustion engines we should immediately change the narrative to whether or not we want to keep emissions and only talk about emission no matter how often they try to derail the discussion with their talk about technology.

military Keynesianism (the idea of using military spending to drive economic growth) ...
He sees recent EU defense initiatives as a hollow imitation [of that]

The implication being that military spending in Europe is rising as an economic measure and not as a defensive measure against an openly aggressive military power in the east is completely baseless.

His entanglements with various lobby groups aside, Merz is just a terrible politician.
Merz is not a diplomat or negotiator he just wants to be the boss and give orders.
That is not how you get things done in a coalition government or in parliament.

It is somewhat misleading but not false. He did vote against it as the linked article also points out.

English tl:dr for those interested: He did vote for an earlier proposal that would have made marital rape illegal but allowed potential victims to block an investigation.
Critics feared that abusive spouses could force their victims to block investigations.
That proposal ultimately failed, a new version without "veto" was proposed, Merz voted against but it ultimately passed.