Tuesday, January 31, 2023
Berlin repeat election to go ahead, says Germany's top court
Berlin repeat election to go ahead, says Germany's top court
Germany's high court ruled on Tuesday that a re-run of Berlin's contested 2021 state and municipal elections can go ahead as planned on February 12.
The Federal Constiutional Court (BVerfG) struck down several urgent requests to postpone the repeat vote.
Judges still have to consider the main hearing seeking to cancel the new vote altogether, but said that the election will still go forward while they examine the case.
Berlin's state election in September resulted in a narrpw victory for the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) that saw them enter a coalition with the runner-up Greens.
"We will now do everything possible until February 12 to ensure that a smooth election is held in Berlin," said mayor Franziska Giffey of the SPD.
Giffey has only held her post since the disputed vote, and faces steep competition from the center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) and Green Party.
The opposition CDU hailed Tuesday's decision as "good for democracy and good for Berlin."
Regional leaders for the Green Party said they met the verdict with "relief."
Why do the Berlin elections have to be repeated?
Berlin, which is not only the capital but one of Germany's 16 federal states, held four votes on the same day on September 26, 2021 — the federal election, the state election, local district elections, and a referendum on socializing major housing companies.
While election fraud has not been alleged, it soon emerged that several irregularities had taken place during the vote. This included inaccessible polling places due to the Berlin Marathon being run the same day, ballots being delivered to the wrong locations, and some voters only being given a ballot for Germany's federal election and not the regional vote.
After months of investigation, Berlin's top court said there were grounds to hold a fresh vote.
A cross-party coalition of some 43 Berlin politicians and civilians sought to overturn the decision and stop a repeat election.
The new vote will not affect the federal election that saw Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) come to power. It could, however, restructure the balance of power in Germany's upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat, which represents the 16 state governments.
While you're here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter Berlin Briefing.
Remember the military equipment left in Afghanistan?
EXCLUSIVE Top Republican slams Biden administration after American weapons left to the Taliban during disastrous withdrawal begin turning up in the hands of Pakistan-linked militants in Kashmir
- Fresh reports of militants using American weapons surfaced on Monday
- This time they have been spotted with Pakistan-linked groups in Kashmir
- Rep. Mike Waltz said it was a predictable outcome of chaotic Afghan withdrawal
A senior Republican promised to hold the Biden administration to account on Monday amid a fresh report that weapons abandoned to the Taliban during the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan had made their way to another conflict.
Authorities in Indian-controlled Kashmir claimed that Pakistan-linked militants have been seen with M4s, M16s and other American arms that have rarely been spotted before in the decades-long conflict.
Rep. Mike Waltz, a former Green Beret, said it was the predictable result of the chaotic 2021 withdrawal.
Biden repeats lies about Amtrak conductor again...
Biden goes off the rails as he repeats false story for the EIGHTH time about conductor who congratulated him for logging more miles on Amtrak than Air Force Two as Vice President - 20 years after he retired
- Biden repeated Monday for the eighth time a made-up Amtrak commuting story
- Said he a conductor congratulated him for 1M miles after he was dead for a year
- Happened during remarks to repair an Amtrak tunnel in Baltimore
The DOJ will let leftist illegally protest at Supreme Court justices home but don't you pray near an abortion clinic
Another Trump-hating FBI lovebird flies out of the woodwork...the FBI is so corrupt and greedy for power and money it not longer functions as a law enforcement agency
January 30, 2023
Another Trump-hating FBI lovebird flies out of the woodwork
A certain amount of foofaraw came about when FBI bigshots Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were caught sending Trump-hating text-messages while in the throes of an extramarital affair.
And rightly, most of the attention went to the pair's illegal use of government property and underhanded Borgia-style machinations against the incoming U.S. president.
But their openly out there extramarital affair is worth noting, too. Under FBI regulations, adulterous affairs are a firing offense, given that such behavior puts national security at risk and automatically leads to the loss of one's security clearance. There's a lot of this going on at that troubled wokester agency now that a new lovebird case has emerged in the bust of FBI counterintelligence chief Charles McGonigal, yet nobody seems to be stopping it.
Sure enough, an angry mistress has emerged in McGonigal's case and she was reportedly instrumental in exposing his influence-peddling on behalf of a sanctioned Russian oligarch.
So once again, it makes sense that the rules are there, given that someone who can't keep a personal vow probably wouldn't be inclined to remain loyal to his country, or its democratically elected leader, either.
And let's not forget that it also makes the bureau a figure of fun.
Remember this exchange between lovebird Strzok and Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas?
"I've talked to FBI agents around the country," he said. "You've embarrassed them. You've embarrassed yourself. I can't help but wonder when I see you looking there, with a little smirk, how many times did you look so innocent into your wife's eye and lie to her about Lisa —" Gohmert was then cut off by the howls from Democratic members, which included one encouraging Gohmert to take "medication." The audible interjection from Democrats was a rare breach of decorum within the formality of Congress.
LOL. Good old Louie. Always thinking what the regular guys are thinking.
Which brings us to McGonigal, the now-indicted former FBI counterintelligence chief who was arrested last week in New York for influence-peddling on behalf of sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
Sure enough, he too, was having an extramarital affair and it came back to bite him. He took a mistress while ensconced as FBI counterintelligence chief, and once he dumped her, she took to drinking and didn't take it well.
According to Business Insider, as summed up by the Daily Beast:
The angry ex-lover of the FBI’s former New York counterintelligence chief claims she tipped the feds off to some of his misdeeds before his arrest last week. Charles McGonigal, who was part of the FBI probe of the Trump campaign’s Russia ties, has been charged with money laundering, lying to the FBI, and taking money to help a sanctioned Russian oligarch, among others. In an interview with Insider, Allison Guerriero said she dated McGonigal for a year, unaware he was married. He spent far more lavishly than an FBI salary would typically allow, she recalled, and she once found a bag of cash in his apartment. But after their fling ended, he revealed he was married and had no plans to leave his wife. She said she was so angry that, after a bout of drinking, she emailed his boss to disclose the affair as well as extensive dealings she’d noticed McGonigal had in Albania. It’s unclear what came of the email but the feds turned up on her doorstep three years later to ask her about McGonigal and some of her allegations regarding Albania appeared in last week’s indictment.
Her behavior for a time while under the influence of alcohol was, to put it politely, uncontrolled, payback-minded, and she admitted to harassing McGonigal's wife as well as reporting his activities to the people she thought would hear her out, which it turns out was the FBI itself. For undisclosed reasons, her complaint took a long time to verify but she was right on the money. Perhaps if they hadn't eventually acted, she would have found someone else to tell, because she wanted revenge for her ill treatment. This, by the way, is pretty common in espionage cases. Just look up the case of the Walker-Whitworth spy ring from the 1980s. That's why the rule about no extramarital affairs is actually there.
I won't go into the details of the actual influence-peddling charges themselves that McGonigal is accused of, which are deeply interesting and require their own blog. There is great reporting from Dan Bongino, Margot Cleveland and Insider's Mattathias Schwartz, to check on that, but just the fact that the bureau seems to have fallen down on its standards about extramarital affairs is pretty noteworthy.
That there are so many such cases in the increasingly frequent panoply of FBI scandals suggests that they seem to have a flaming swinger culture over there, with none of them inclined to keep their marital vows, at least based on what turns up in the news. Are they all like that? Does Christopher Wray get a little on the side, too? How is it this kind of culture can continue in such a widespread way yet nobody gets sanctioned?
Yes, it does matter for national security, regardless of the leftist claim that "it's just sex." So many bad cases now from the FBI have a mistress in the background.
And speaking of swingers, remember that the FBI agent in charge of the phony Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping case in Michigan, where a lot of backwoods characters were enticed into a kidnapping plot they would not have gotten involved with otherwise, was a full-blown swinger, and wife-beater to boot. That case fell apart in no small part based on that agent's personal behavior.
That's some culture they've got there at the FBI, and they have got to enforce their rules or see more and more cases like McGonigal's. Not tolerating this stuff might have kept McGonigal from getting involved in the nefarious oligarch activity he got involved in just by keeping him honest. He wasn't, he engaged in a lot of this stuff he wasn't supposed to, he thumbed his nose at the rules because nobody enforced them, and it didn't take long for him to soon be sneaking around with the minions of a Russian oligarch for big money.
Needless to say, adultery tends to be a leftist value if not a completely leftist practice. Leftists will say it's "just sex" as they did during the Clinton era and excuse all kinds of bad personal sexual behavior that never was tolerated in the past, and does run counter to the established rules. Conservatives will, on paper at least, say it's not right even if some personally fall short.
With all the talk about breaking up or abolishing the FBI, it's obvious the agency needs some kind of hosing out. With so many open adultery cases going on at the bureau, it might be that just enforcing the adultery rules alone might be the most effective way of getting the least loyal, least-law-minded, and least rule-minded agents out of there. That might be the quickest way to clear the left's plotters, fabricators, and traitors out.
Pro-life activist Mark Houck was found not guilty Monday by a federal jury of charges stemming from an altercation outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Philadelphia, signaling a victory for the pro-life movement in its feud with the Justice Department.
Mr. Houck, 49, was charged in September with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act in an October 2021 skirmish with a Planned Parenthood volunteer escort, even though local authorities declined to pursue the case and a judge tossed a civil lawsuit.
A visibly relieved Mr. Houck said outside the federal courthouse in Philadelphia that he was grateful for his family, his attorneys and “the justice that we feel was finally served.”
Thomas More Society Executive Vice President Peter Breen, who had accused the Justice Department of “pure harassment,” said the defense was “thrilled with the outcome.”
“This is a win for Mark and the entire pro-life movement,” Mr. Breen said. “The Biden Department of Justice’s intimidation against pro-life people and people of faith has been put in its place.”