[Chron] Return of the Micksican Beto O'Rourke rallied Democratic voters on Saturday [Apr 26] at a North Texas town hall for his grassroots organization, Powered by People, which the former El Paso congressman founded in 2019.
During a Q&A session at the event, when asked if he would run for U.S. Senate, O'Rourke said, "I'm gonna infer from your question that you do not want Ken Paxton to be your next senator."
"If...this is what the people of Texas want—that it's the highest and best use of what I can give you—then yes, I will," O'Rourke said amid loud cheers from the crowd. This was on the teevee news about April 28, but I kept forgetting to post it.
[ZH] Germany's blue-chip DAX 40 index fell nearly 2% after a new political crisis erupted in Berlin, triggered by "conservative" leader (so conservative he reneged on his election promises to halt runaway speding and crammed through a fiscal timebomb in the last days of the previous government) Friedrich Merz's failed bid to become the country's 10th postwar chancellor.
Merz needed 316 votes out of 630 to secure the chancellorship but received only 310, falling short of a majority despite his coalition holding 328 seats. Because the vote was conducted by secret ballot, the identity of those within his own party who defected remains unknown. The outcome prevented his swearing in on Tuesday and pitching Europe’s biggest economy into uncharted territory....
[IsraelTimes] Designation allows domestic intelligence agency to step up monitoring of far-right Alternative for Germany – largest opposition party in parliament
A German court said on Monday that far-right party Alternative for Germany had filed a lawsuit challenging the domestic intelligence agency’s decision to classify it as an murderous Moslem organization.
A spokesperson for the administrative court in Cologne ...the largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and the fourth populated city in Germany.... said the lawsuit and a corresponding emergency petition had been submitted, both of which would be reviewed once the BfV domestic intelligence agency had confirmed that it had been notified.
The murderous Moslem classification announced on Friday allows the spy agency to step up monitoring of the AfD, the biggest opposition party in parliament, for example by recruiting informants and intercepting party communications.
The agency’s 1,100-page experts’ report, which is not to be released to the public, found the AfD to be a racist and anti-Moslem organization.
The German parliament could now attempt to limit or halt public funding for the AfD. The incoming government will also review whether to launch an attempt at an outright ban of the party, Social Democratic Party (SPD) leader Lars Klingbeil said last week.
The AfD has denounced the designation as a politically motivated attempt to discredit and criminalize it.
Its lawsuit comes one day before conservative leader Friedrich Merz is due to be elected chancellor by Germany’s lower house of parliament and amid a heated debate within his party over how to deal with the AfD.
According to a representative survey conducted by the polling institute INSA for the Bild am Sonntag newspaper this weekend, 61% of Germans agreed with the categorization of the AfD by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) as "confirmed right-wing extremist endeavor," with 48% supporting a ban.
Thirty-seven percent said they would oppose a ban; 15% said they didn't know.
As for the effects of any potential AfD ban, 35% of respondents said they thought such a measure would bolster democracy, while 39% thought it would damage democracy. Some 16% didn't think there would be any effect, while 10% didn't know.
#1
Hesse State Govt Bans AfD Populist Politicians From Overseas Trips. A state government in Germany has banned members of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) from taking part in foreign business trips. The move comes after Germany’s domestic spy agency declared the AfD a right-wing extremist organisation last week.
The German state of Hesse announced it would not include AfD members in foreign business trips due to the labelling of the party as extremists. The state’s Europe Minister, Manfred Pentz, announced the exclusion of the AfD members on May 4. Pentz stated, “After the classification of the AfD, I decided not to invite representatives of this party to my foreign business trips for the time being.”
The minister argued that having the AfD on trips dealing with countries like Israel would harm Germany’s reputation, despite the AfD having many pro-Israel members. “My business trips abroad are aimed at promoting [Hesse]. I can’t achieve that if I travel with representatives of a secure right-wing extremist party,” he insisted.
Germany’s actions to declare the AfD an extremist group mean that the domestic spy agency would be able to surveil party members. The move could also lead to the AfD being banned in the future.
Members of the Trump administration have outright condemned the moves against the AfD. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated, “Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy—it’s tyranny in disguise.”
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/06/2025 6:52 Comments ||
Top||
#3
"In church, kitchen, Kinder, we fight
For the values of Weimar Freiheit!
We will sing--"
"Ja, und cook--"
"From our grandparents' Buch!"
And that's all that it took...
[To Get Right]
Another temporary victory for the disloyal opposition.
[KhaamaPress] A U.S. court blocks Trump’s bid to end protections for 400,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
A U.S. federal court has rejected a Trump administration attempt to end temporary protected status (TPS) for approximately 400,000 migrants colonists from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela
...a country in Central America that sits on an enormous pool of oil. Formerly the most prospereous country in the region, it became infested with Commies sniffing almost unlimited wealth. It turned out the wealth wasn't unlimited, the economy collapsed under the clownish Hugo Chavez, the murder rate exceeded places like Honduras and El Salvador. A significant proportion of the populace refugeed to Colombia and points south... . The ruling was delivered on Monday, May 5, ordering the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to halt its plan to terminate the program.
The two-year temporary protection was originally granted during President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. You're a lyin' dog-faced pony soldier... ’s term in response to humanitarian crises in those countries, allowing migrants colonists to live and work legally in the United States. The court ruled that ending this status without sufficient justification would cause serious harm to vulnerable communities.
The effort to revoke TPS was part of former President Donald Trump ...The cad! Twice caught beating wimmin!... ’s broader immigration crackdown, which sought to increase deportations, including of individuals previously granted humanitarian relief. The DHS had announced in March that it would terminate the program, prompting legal challenges from immigrant rights groups.
This court ruling marks a significant victory for immigrant advocacy organizations and affected migrants colonists, many of whom have built stable lives in the U.S. Legal experts and human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. groups argue that ending TPS without a lawful basis would not only disrupt families but also violate due process protections.
#1
It's beyond time to move the lower US courts to some place like Nome Alaska. That would weed out these lawfare judges as they don't have the grit to live for more than one season in a fridged land.
Dumb as a box of hair with Ghetto ethics
Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas., said the Democratic Party needs people "unafraid" to stand up to President Donald Trump when asked if she believes she is the future leader of the party.
Crockett appeared on CNN’s "The Lead with Jake Tapper" on Monday to discuss comments Trump made against her during his "Meet the Press" interview on Sunday.
"I mean, I look at the Democrats, they're in total disarray," Trump said. "They have a new person named [Texas Rep. Jasmine] Crockett. I watched her speak the other day. She's definitely a low IQ person. And they said she's the future of the party. I said, ‘You have to be kidding.’"
#2
One morning while taking the air,
Fair Jasmine's unethical hair
Was luckily caught
In a box--
"It was not!"
Well, in some kinda hedge. [Crockett, bare]
[FoxNews] Trump-appointed judge orders North Carolina to certify nation's last undecided 2024 election
A federal judge on Monday ordered the North Carolina elections board to certify results showing Democrat Allison Riggs as the winner of the state Supreme Court race against Republican Jefferson Griffin, ruling that thousands of contested ballots in the November contest must remain in the final count.
U.S. District Judge Richard Myers – who was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2019 – agreed with Riggs and others who argued it would violate the U.S. Constitution to carry out recent decisions by state appeals courts that could remove potentially thousands of ballots for overseas military and their family members who were not required to attach a copy of their photo IDs, as well as ballots for a category of "Never Residents," or U.S. citizens with family ties to North Carolina who have never lived in the United States. Myers wrote that votes could not be removed six months after Election Day without damaging due process or equal protection rights of the affected residents.
Myers ordered the State Board of Elections to certify results that, after two recounts, had Riggs as the winner — by just 734 votes — over Griffin.
"The State Board SHALL certify the results of the election for Seat 6 based on the tally at the completion of the canvassing period on December 10, 2024," Myers wrote, denying Griffin’s petitions for judicial review and injunctive relief.
The judge delayed his order for seven days in case Griffin wants to appeal the ruling to the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
More than 5.5 million ballots were cast in what has been the nation’s last undecided race from November’s elections.
Myers said the "case concerns whether the federal Constitution permits a state to alter the rules of an election after the fact and apply those changes retroactively to only a select group of voters, and in so doing treat those voters differently than other similarly situated individuals."
The board "must not proceed with implementation of the North Carolina Court of Appeals and Supreme Court’s orders, and instead must certify the results of the election for (the seat) based on the tally at the completion of the canvassing period," Myers wrote.
Griffin, himself a state Court of Appeals judge, filed formal protests after the election in hopes that removing ballots he said were unlawfully cast would flip the outcome to him.
Griffin's legal team was reviewing Myers' order Monday night and evaluating the next steps, Griffin campaign spokesperson Paul Shumaker told the Associated Press.
"Today, we won," Riggs said in a statement. "I‘m proud to continue upholding the Constitution and the rule of law as North Carolina’s Supreme Court Justice."
Griffin wanted Myers to leave undisturbed the state courts' decisions, which also directed that most of the voters with otherwise ineligible ballots get 30 days to provide identifying information for their race choices to remain in the tally.
Riggs, the state Democratic Party and some affected voters said Griffin was trying to change the 2024 election outcome after the fact by removing ballots cast by voters who complied with voting rules as they were written last fall.
Myers wrote that Griffin’s formal protests after the election, which were rejected by the State Board of Elections, constituted efforts to make retroactive changes to the voting laws that would arbitrarily disenfranchise only the voters who were targeted by Griffin. Griffin’s challenges over voters not providing photo identification only covered at most six Democratic-leaning counties in the state.
"You establish the rules before the game. You don’t change them after the game is done," Myers wrote in a 68-page order. "Permitting parties to ‘upend the set rules’ of an election after the election has taken place can only produce ‘confusion and turmoil'" that "'threatens to undermine public confidence in the federal courts, state agencies, and the elections themselves,'" he added.
One category of ballots that state appellate courts found to be ineligible covered military or overseas voters who did not provide copies of photo identification or an ID exception form with their absentee ballots. A state rule exempted them from the requirement. The appeals courts had permitted a "cure" process for these voters, so their ballots could still count in the race.
The other category of ballots that the appellate courts declared violated the state constitution were cast by overseas voters who have never lived in the U.S. but whose parents were declared North Carolina residents. A state law had authorized these persons to vote in state elections.
Griffin filed formal protests that appeared to cover more than 65,000 ballots. Ensuing state court rulings whittled down the total to between 1,675 and 7,000, according to court filings.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Chron] 
...the largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and the fourth populated city in Germany....
...46th president of the U.S. 
