THIS IS A TRUE STORY

September 15, 2019

Our 12 year old lab mix Jack was found by a kindly gentleman at 44th Avenue and Irving in San Francisco around 10 am this morning after 115 hours and many miles traveling along the Pacific Coast shoreline near San Francisco.

A network of volunteers blanketed the area with Posters and contacted a network of dog walkers, professional organizations, volunteer groups and offices in two counties in the effort. In the end it was one Poster seen by a conscientious citizen which resulted in Jack coming home.

In reality Jack knew it was time and ALLOWED himself to be found.

Jack made an amazing journey from the Westmoor area below Daly City (lower circle map) to 44th Ave and Irving (upper circle near GGP map).

Jack was on his way to the Doggie Bath-o-Matt at 41st Avenue and Irving. Jack had turned up from the beach at precisely the spot of this route.

Jack went rogue around 16:00 on 9.10.19, just a day after he arrived at the dog boarder’s home in Daly City where he was to have stayed during our 10 day trip to Montana.

We left Missoula as soon as we could book a flight out.

Jack is 12-years old. The pads of his feet are raw. He is tired, hungry, and thirsty. Otherwise, he seems to be in good shape.

He will be checked by Balboa Pet Hospital

Jack must have encountered many dangers on his 5-day journey home. He evaded the dog catcher’s net. San Mateo County Animal Care and Control chased him and was unable to nab him. He evaded coyotes, traffic, and other people.

Thank goodness Jack is back. I was grief stricken looking at the possibility of losing my dear companion, Jack. The sounds of crashing furniture and shrieks of frustration could be heard heard both at the Inn in Missoula and from my office when we returned to San Francisco.

We adopted him as a rescue dog nearly eight years ago.

We worked indefatigably to find Jack. We connected to an amazing network of women who have dedicated their lives to re-uniting lost dogs with their grieving owners. They continue their efforts in the face of hatred and enmity towards decent people by President Trump.

The women wanted to show others that women care about others in need. One is a retired San Francisco Deputy City Attorney who worked in the Department of Public Health for 10 years. The other is a good samaritan who assisted in the effort and provided a lot of practical advice.

Happily, the resourceful Jack made his way home by himself and the cadre of volunteers could move onto another Dog rescue project.

Truth is stranger than fiction in the legal world.  Then again this is San Francisco.  Anything is possible politically and legally, no matter how outrageous.  Translation.  Money, power and connected attorneys take precedenc over the rules of procedure and legal doctrine. Anything goes if you can get away with it, particularly in the often tawdry world of  housing law.

Mission Local by Joe Eskenazi 9.9.2019

Anne Kihagi, (pictured below) the notorious landlord who has been successfully sued by the city and a bevy of illegally evicted former tenants, can add one more litigant to the battalion of people and entities pursuing her legally: Her own longtime attorney.

Karen Uchiyama, the lawyer who for years defended Kihagi, served as her muscle in attempting to evict or otherwise dislodge tenants — oftentimes elderly and/or disabled — from her many buildings, and chauvinistically advocated for the woman known as “San Francisco’s cruelest landlord” last week turned against her erstwhile client.

On Sept. 4, Uchiyama filed suit against Kihagi — as well as some of her alphabet soup of LLCs, including Zoriall, Xelan Prop 1, Renka Prop, and Nozari 2 — seeking $158,501.66.

“Defendants failed to pay for legal services per contract after benefits from Plaintiff’s services,” sums up Uchiyama’s filing.

Confoundingly, a substitution-of-attorney document dated Sept. 6 — two days after Uchiyama filed suit against  Kihagi and her LLCs — reveals Uchiyama to be the new counsel defending Kihagi’s Xelan Prop 1 LLC against claims by Umpqua Bank.

Uchiyama is, per court documents, simultaneously suing and defending Xelan Prop 1 LLC. Calls and e-mails to her have not been returned.

This setup is, to put it mildly, unconventional. “A red flag would go up for me as a legal ethicist,” says Josh Davis, a law professor at the University of San Francisco and the director of the USF Center for Law and Ethics. “The general rule would be that you can’t simultaneously be adverse to a party and also represent that party.”

Added Davis’ fellow USF law professor and legal ethicist Lara Bazelon, “that seems like a classic conflict of interest. If that’s not a conflict of interest, I don’t know what is.”

If Uchiyama’s client doesn’t take action, Davis says, both the state bar and the judge might see fit to do so.

This is the latest bizarre twist in a case replete with them. Kihagi burst onto the San Francisco scene in 2013; over the next two-and-a-half years she, her sisters, and a web of LLCs obtained at least 11 San Francisco buildings for just shy of $30 million. Between 2006 and 2013, she had bought at least 14 properties in Southern California.

There as here, she systematically targeted rent-controlled structures, often inhabited by longtime, elderly and/or disabled tenants. These buildings have an ostensibly limited income stream — but not if you eject the longstanding tenants and bring in new, market-rate renters, as she repeatedly did. She could then borrow against this enhanced revenue stream and leverage that into obtaining a next building and a next building.

And that worked out great. Until it didn’t. In May 2017, Judge Angela Bradstreet sided with the city in its suit vs. Kihagi, hitting her with 1,612 separate violations. In October 2017, a jury awarded illegally evicted tenants Dale Duncan and his wife Marta Muñoz $3.5 million — purportedly the largest award in state history for a single unit.

This year, the Court of Appeal declined to overturn the 2017 ruling against Kihagi, putting her on the spot for millions in fines and setting in motion a series of court orders. All 11 of her known city properties have been placed into receivership and three of those have been sold already. A procession of people and entities are jockeying for their share of that money — and, now, Uchiyama appears to be getting in that line. At the end.

Kihagi currently owes the city some $4.5 million; the city in May collected around $3 million from a bond it insisted she obtain. To get that bond, Kihagi had to put up collateral — possibly some of her Southern California properties but, truly, it’s difficult to know. Kihagi tends to shuffle ownership of buildings among her many family members and her web of LLCs.

While comparisons to Trump are often facile, Kihagi has amassed an impressively Trump-like collection of series of stiffed employees – flooring guys, surveyors, contractors, and, yes, lawyers She paid for their work only when a judge ordered they be paid. Or didn’t.

In a profoundly on-the-nose moment, a PR maven earlier this year hired to soften Kihagi’s image claimed she promptly stiffed him $2,000. 

Another mistreated workman, a surveyor named Richard Langford, sued her in what he calls an “open-and-shut” case of nonpayment. He told San Francisco Magazine that he was mystified when Kihagi appealed the judge’s ruling, and still more mystified when, he said, she threatened to sue him in small-claims court in Los Angeles for the amount she owed him.

“I told her, ‘If I have to show up in Los Angeles, I’m bringing your ex-husband who can’t find you and I’m bringing all the tenants who can’t find you,’” he told the magazine. “I got calls — constantly — from people who saw I had some dealings with her.”

Langford told the magazine that he ended up recovering most of his $6,855 ruling, but it required nearly two years to do so.

Kihagi has both sued and been sued by multiple attorneys. Others, who did not opt to make their case in court, have also claimed she stiffed them. One, Daniel Bornstein, purportedly complained loudly enough in public about Kihagi’s nonpayment that other attorneys overheard him doing so. When queried about this, he told me “I can only say I am relieved to not be representing her anymore.”

The endgame for Kihagi is as difficult to grasp as the property structure of her many buildings. Whether Uchiyama’s suit is the beginning of the end or end of the beginning is hard to say. But this legal move comes not from an aggrieved tenant but the lawyer working to evict those tenants — and a vocal Kihagi defender.

“Kihagi’s attorneys are going to get the receivership withdrawn,” Uchiyama wrote in an e-mail last year.

This year the receivership was, as noted above, extended to all 11 of Kihagi’s known San Francisco properties. As also noted above, three of them have been sold already by the court-appointed receiver.

“Keep believing everything you hear,” Uchiyama continued in that 2018 e-mail. “It creates an illusion that the tenants are winning in court when they are not.”

The millions in fines owed by Kihagi are compounding at an annual rate of 10 percent, which roughly comes out to $850 a day.

When asked his thoughts on the lawyer who cross-examined him in court — and cast him as the villain persecuting Anne Kihagi — joining him in line for compensation from Kihagi, Duncan laughed.

“It just shows how crazy the world is,” he said.

https://missionlocal.org/2019/09/anne-kihagi-san-franciscos-cruelest-landlord-is-sued-by-her-longtime-attorney/

Why it takes a horrific event to move people to radical action is part of human nature. SUV’s are gas guzzling, environmentally disastrous and a clear and present danger to all in their path.  Berlin is a start. Ban them all, worldwide.

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 9.8.2019

Four people were killed in Berlin when a Porsche SUV veered onto a sidewalk. While hundreds of people held a candlelight vigil on Saturday evening, environmental protection organizations called for a ban on SUV vehicles.

A 3-year-old boy, a 64-year-old woman and two men in their late 20s were killed in an apparent road accident in Berlin on Friday evening, Berlin police said Saturday.

A Porsche SUV mounted a footpath full of pedestrians at the corner of Invaliden and Acker streets in central Berlin. The vehicle hit construction fencing and landed in a vacant building plot.

It is “completely irresponsible to produce and drive SUVs,” said Benjamin Stephan, a Greenpeace official, adding that German manufacturers must move away from “climate killers” and produce lighter electronic cars.

“The risk of dying in an accident involving an SUV is much higher than a normal car. Pedestrians have a 50% higher risk of fatal accidents due to the higher bonnet,” according to Greenpeace.

“Given the evidence so far, we assume this was a traffic accident and not a deliberate act,” police spokesman Thilo Cablitz said.

The injured driver was taken to hospital for treatment, where he died. Two other people from the vehicle were also hospitalized.

“Initial indications that a medical emergency involving the driver could have been the cause, as well as all other witness statements, information and evidence, are part of the investigation,” the police said.

Authorities are reconstructing the accident to determine the cause of the accident. Police are also investigating whether the SUV hit pedestrians.

Sorrow and anger

Stephan von Dassel, the district mayor of Berlin-Mitte, said “armor-like SUV cars” don’t belong in the city, as every driving error puts the lives of innocent people at risk.

“These care are also climate killers. They are a threat even without an accident,” Von Dassel said.

Protest against SUVs

Environmental activists protested against SUV vehicles on Saturday. A Greenpeace member told AFP news agency that environmentalists blocked a SUV loading dock for about three hours.

https://www.dw.com/en/berliners-call-for-suv-ban-after-fatal-traffic-accident/a-50342322

Every Picture Tells a Story – Ongoing Series

The inhumane policies of the current American Administration, criminalizing and dehumanizing,  has a human face which all the World needs to see.

Deutsche Welle 9.7.2019

The migrant caravans to the US border have generated no shortage of debate among politicians and the public. Take a look at Mexican photojournalist Guillermo Arias award-winning depiction of their perilous journey.

Mexican photojournalist, Guillermo Arias, won the prestigious Visa d’or news photojournalism prize, for his depiction of the Central American migrant caravans.

The AFP photographer won the award on Saturday for his story entitled “the Caravan” at photojournalism’s biggest annual festival. He beat off competition from The New York Times, Reuters and The Washington Post.

Throughout 2018 and 2019, migrant caravans with thousands of people made the way northwards from Central America. Most were heading to the US border in a bid to escape poverty and violence in their home countries.

In response, the US sent troops to secure the border, as well as setting up controversial camps to detain those who crossed the border illegally, and instigating a draconian policy where children were separated and detained away from their family.

https://www.dw.com/en/in-pictures-photojournalist-wins-top-award-for-portrayal-of-migrant-caravan/g-50341493

This is some very solid news reporting. The writer doesn’t excuse the Montana Sheriffs use of force behavior.  He points out that the Plaintiff Larry Martinez’s medical history and behaviorial issues definitely hurt his police abuse lawsuit with the Jury.  It is hard enough to prove police misconduct  It is surprising this litigant was able to find counsel who took the matter to trial.

Perhaps there is more here.  On its face, reading the news article, I am asking myself why Larry Martinez sued.

Above – Lake County Sgt. Michael Carlson demonstrates for the jury handcuffing methods on defense attorney Mitch Young during an excessive use of force trial on Sept. 5.

The families of the 36 dead people are in a state of shock.  In Oakland it would be very tough to get a conviction.  Why?  The District Attorney did not charge City officials or the owners of the property with any criminal wrongdoing.  Instead, the DA went for the proverbial easy Mark, the building managers. In the end the Jurors determined something was not right with the Prosecution’s strategy.

The defendants, not necessarily stellar citizens, had a very aggressive and competent Defense team who fought for their clients.  That is what Lawyers should be doing.  

Still, the exultation shown by at least one defense counsel following the verdict is classless given the traumatic events of the Ghost Ship fire.

Excerpted from San Francisco Chronicle 9.5.2019

https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Ghost-Ship-trial-Jury-acquits-defendant-Max-14416802.php

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has taken a courageous and practical unanimous vote.  

The NRA is a “Domestic Terrorist Organization.”  For too long this group of gun toting demagogues has bullied, intimadated and coerced elected officials at all levels from town councils to Congress and the Executive Branch  stop meaningful gun control in America. Their conduct is disgraceful and abhorrent.

The murder rate and mass shootings historically afflicting this country has been aided and abetted by the powerful, mindless and doctrinaire reactionaries of the NRA.   

The NRA has and will continue advocate for the right to keep and bear arms regardless of the consequences to the public.

San Francisco Chronicle 9.4.2019

San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously passed a resolution to declare the National Rifle Association a domestic terrorist organization, while also urging other cities, states and the federal government to ascribe the same label to the gun lobbyist group.

Supervisor Catherine Stefani, a Deputy District Attorney, introduced the resolution after the Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting, and she said that incident as well as mass shootings in El Paso and Odessa, Texas, as well as Dayton, Ohio, have bolstered the argument for passing the resolution.

“It is time to rid this country of the NRA and call them out for who they really are: They are a domestic terrorist organization,” Stefani said.

Stefani  (pictured below) blamed the NRA for the proliferation of guns in the United States and the mass shootings that have become a near daily occurrence.

“The NRA exists to spread disinformation and knowingly puts weapons in the hands of those who would harm and terrorize us by blocking common-sense gun violence prevention legislation, and by advocating for dangerous legislation like stand-your-ground laws, permit-less carry, and guns in schools from kindergarten on up through university,” Stefani said.

She also called the NRA a misogynist organization because of its stance on arming domestic abusers.

“This ludicrous stunt by the Board of Supervisors is an effort to distract from the real problems facing San Francisco, such as rampant homelessness, drug abuse and skyrocketing petty crime, to name a few,” the statement said. “The NRA will continue working to protect the constitutional rights of all freedom-loving Americans.”

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/SF-supervisors-declare-NRA-a-domestic-terrorist-14412974.php

Greg Suhr was forced out as San Francisco’s top cop in 2016 by late Mayor Ed Lee following  another San Francisco officer involved shooting.  Having sunk into relative obscurity, the ex-Chief has returned in a controversial way.

Suhr’s endorsement of Suzy Loftus, former Police Commissioner and currently legal counsel for the Sheriff’s Dept., will further heat up the District Attorney’s race.

Suhr’s backing may help Loftus in the “conservative” areas of The City.  His presence in the Loftus camp will surely motivate those who have called the cops to account and suffered by their actions.  

The Chesa Boudin campaign need only sit back, stay quiet and await the strong reaction to Suhr’s  endorsement of Loftus.

San Francisco Examiner 9.3.2019  Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

Greg Suhr was forced to resign after continuing controversy over police shootings

Our City-by-the-Bay’s former police chief and San Francisco native, Greg Suhr, is stepping back into the political limelight — or at least, tip-toeing into it — to co-host a campaign event for District Attorney candidate Suzy Loftus.

That “reception in support of” Loftus, that many described to me as a fundraiser, is slated for Wednesday, September 25, according to an invitation making the rounds on social media.

It’s a gutsy move.

While Suhr is beloved on the West Side as a son of San Francisco and St. Ignatius College Preparatory High School alum, he’s also got a fair share of detractors, especially among people of color on the opposite side of The City whose community has a shaky relationship with the SFPD.

For a brief glimpse at how incensed people can get about our former chief, look no farther than 2017, when he tried to get a gig consulting on security for the Golden State Warriors. As soon as the move was publicly announced it was lambasted, and the Warriors and Suhr parted ways.

It’s been a rough road for Suhr, who resigned in 2016 from his 26-year career on the force and as chief at the behest of Mayor Ed Lee, after officers shot and killed several people of color in the line of duty in 2016. That included Mario Woods, Luis Gongora and Jessica Nelson Williams, for those keeping track.

Amid those deaths, protesters dubbed “The Frisco Five” staged a hunger strike calling for Suhr’s ouster, and led a march of hundreds to City Hall against him.

“If Suhr is a supporter of yours and you’re running for District Attorney, it shows me you’re about prosecuting black and brown folks and any of the corruption going on in the department,” said Equipto, a San Francisco rapper and activist and one of the hunger strikers. If someone is supported by Suhr, he said, “They’d be a police sympathizer to me. Some might say it’s OK to sympathize with police.”

Equipto ran into Loftus a few months ago, he said. She reached out to shake his hand and he declined, he noted.

Father Richard Smith, has long worked in the Mission District alongside those communities, often advocating for justice for those shot by SFPD. He has endorsed Loftus’ opponent, Chesa Boudin, and took umbrage at Loftus seeking support from Suhr.

“When Chief Suhr resigned after all the racist text messages and killings by police, many of us hoped for a new day in SFPD,” Smith told me. “We’re still a long way from implementing those reforms. And knowing that former Chief Suhr remains such a prominent influencer in the Loftus campaign is very discouraging for us. We had hoped the city was turning a page.”

Notably, Loftus formerly led the Police Commission. She’s also got a strong base of support on the West Side, and at various points has been rumored as a possible supervisor candidate there.

Political consultants have also said its a key battleground in her race against Chesa Boudin, Nancy Tung and Leif Dautch, as low voter turnout will favor the more conservative, dependable voters on that side of The City.

And generally, as a rule, folks on that side of The City still love Greg Suhr.

“When I was on the Police Commission, I worked with Greg to get body worn cameras for patrol officers and started the process to reform the use of force rules,” Loftus told me, Tuesday. “Those changes have resulted in a 30 percent decrease in use of force by SFPD. He joins reform advocates like Lateefah Simon, Officers for Justice, Supervisor Shamann Walton and Roma Guy in supporting me.”

He also isn’t the only co-host, which features a who’s-who of West Side notables like former Supervisor Annemarie Conroy, key to gaining support in the Sunset District, said Jim Ross, a long-time political consultant.

“This is the West Side movers and shakers list,” Ross said. “This is a real opportunity for Loftus to organize on the West Side of town.”

While everyone I talked to who is in-the-know about this event called it a fundraiser, Loftus’ campaign manager Lauren Feuerborn denied that descriptor and called it a “house party.”

So no checks will pass hands at this house party?

“I can’t guarantee we won’t raise any money, but that’s not the priority,” Feuerborn said.

Mayor London Breed, Sheriff Vicki Hennessy, and the Mayor’s Chief of Staff Sean Elsbernd are also guests and hosts on the list. Suhr co-hosted a similar event for Breed’s mayoral campaign.

Star studded, indeed.

https://www.sfexaminer.com/news-columnists/former-sfpd-chief-returns-to-political-limelight-to-campaign-for-suzy-loftus/

Margaret Atwood, world reknown ever since her 1985 Dystopian novel “The Handmaids Tale” took the literary world by storm, has written a sequel “The Testaments.”  This novel result in the Canadian writer being awarded her second Booker.  The first was in 2000 for “The Assassin’s Tale.”

I read “The Handmaid’s Tale” when it was released and have read it twice since.

Deutsche Welle 9.3.2019

The six finalists for the top literary award in the English-speaking world have been revealed. Veteran authors Margaret Atwood and Salman Rushdie have already picked up the Booker Prize in the past.

The Booker Prize shortlist, revealed on Tuesday, is always a highly awaited announcement in the world of literature. 

Six books were selected from the longlist of 13. “Like all great literature, these books teem with life, with a profound and celebratory humanity,” said jury chair Peter Florence at the press conference.

These are the works that made it onto the shortlist:

– Margaret Atwood’s novel The Testaments is a sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, a dystopian novel from 1985 which has also been adapted into a hit TV series. The new novel is set 15 years later. The Canadian author won the Booker in 2000 with The Blind Assassin.

– Scotland-based author Lucy Ellmann’s Ducks, Newburyport explores the worries of an Ohio housewife; the book is described as “a heresy, a wonder — and a revolution in the novel.”

– Chigozie Obioma from Nigeria, had already been shortlisted for the award with his debut work, The Fishermen. His second novel, An Orchestra of Minorities, has now also been selected among the finalists.

– British-Turkish author Elif Safak is the most-read female author in Turkey. Her novel 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World is written from the perspective of a dead woman, a victim of sexual violence.

– British-Indian author Salman Rushdie’s shortlisted novel, Quichotte , modernizes Cervantes’ classic and is set in present-day USA. The author of The Satanic Verses won the 1981 Booker Prize for Midnight’s Children and was selected twice as the “Booker of Bookers,” to mark the 25th anniversary and the 40th anniversary of the prize. Rushdie was also shortlisted for several other novels.

– Bernardine Evaristo, from the UK, has also made it onto the prestigious list with her novel Girl, Woman, Other, which follows the lives and struggles of 12 very different characters. The jury describes the book as “Joyfully polyphonic and vibrantly contemporary, this is a gloriously new kind of history, a novel of our times: celebratory, ever-dynamic and utterly irresistible.”

The Booker Prize, launched in 1969, used to be restricted to authors of the Commonwealth countries, the Republic of Ireland or Zimbabwe. Since 2013, international citizens are eligible as long as the book has been published in the UK.

Beyond the guaranteed increase in book sales, the winner of the award also receives £50,000 (€54,750 / $60,000) on top of the £2,500 granted to each of the six shortlisted authors.

Last year’s winner was Northern Irish author Anna Burns for her novel Milkman and US writer George Saunders who won in 2017 with Lincoln in the Bardo.

The 2019 winner will be announced on October 14. 

https://www.dw.com/en/atwood-rushdie-among-booker-prize-shortlist/a-50267171

Link to National Public Radio (NPR) review attached.

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/03/755868251/the-testaments-takes-us-back-to-gilead-for-a-fast-paced-female-centered-adventur

The rapid rise of the AfD in Germany is not getting the attention it deserves in America. This Neo Nazi party, disguising itself as a legitimate mainstream political party, is rapidly pushing its way forward and becoming major presence in Germany, Europe and beyond.

Deutsche Welle 9.2.2019

The far-right Alternative for Germany continues to make gains after strong showings in two eastern state elections in Brandenburg and Saxony. What lies behind the party’s success in the former East?

There is no simple way to explain the motivations of Alternative for Germany (AfD) party voters. They are far too many, and they are varied. There are, however, some conspicuous traits: Most them are between the ages of 30 and 60, and they are predominantly male.

Lusatia, a region in eastern Saxony and southern Brandenburg, is an AfD stronghold. The far-right party picked up 30% of the vote there in Sunday’s state elections. Lusatia suffered in the economic downturn that followed German reunification in 1990. Coal mining — practically the only major industry left in the region — has been especially hard hit. Polls show that in areas like Lusatia that struggle economically, voters often choose the AfD.

The migration of wolves from Eastern Europe to eastern Germany and the construction of wind turbines are two issues that have upset voters in the region: many locals now have a towering generator close to their property. The wolf issue has enraged people, especially farmers. In an attempt to save their stocks, they were forced to fence in goats and sheep, but often wolves have still managed to kill the animals. There are now so-called wolf guards in some towns to watch over herds. When these things happened, the AfD was there: often present at pre-election events, the party was listening to the people and promised to help.

Read more: Berlin reacts to far-right surge in eastern elections

For years, state governments in Saxony and Brandenburg laid out plans to boost regional investment, some of which were much more successful than others. Those policy failings can can be felt in the region’s numerous struggling communites. On the Polish border (another AfD stronghold), for example, there are near-empty towns with dilapidated streets and old lights, no shops, and hardly any children.

Many people feel abandoned by the federal government in Berlin. They had few chances for prosperity and remained disadvantaged in postunification Germany. Saxony’s government has boasted about the state’s prosperity⁠ but in many towns, there is little evidence of it.

When refugees began to arrive in Germany, an event that drew national attention, many people in this part of the country found it difficult to grasp. They felt they had been there long before the refugees arrived, but nobody ever cared about them. That kind of sentiment was common at the peak of the refugee crisis in 2015 and 2016. Talking to people living there today, little has changed.

The AfD wants to use this regional election success to make gains nationally: The East can be a tailwind for voters in the West, as many party leaders have long said. But this momentum will also stoke internal party tensions: the bolstered factions from the eastern states will increasingly stake a claim on the national level.

An East-West internal party conflict appears to be looming already

Read more: Culture under scrutiny — what AfD gains at the polls imply for the arts

https://www.dw.com/en/what-drives-the-far-right-afds-success-in-eastern-germany/a-50264353