German Police Raid 170 Homes Over 'Hate Speech', Insults To Politicians

 Via Remix News,

On Wednesday morning at 6 a.m., a large-scale police operation was launched across Germany, targeting hundreds of individuals suspected of insulting politicians or spreading “hate and incitement” online.

The massive crackdown saw police launch morning raids against 170 individuals, which saw police seize computers, cell phones, and tablets, and conduct searches in multiple locations across the country.

The action, which was conducted by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), uses the new Criminal Code Paragraph 188 to target individuals accused of racism and hate speech.

North Rhine-Westphalia’s Interior Minister, Herbert Reul (CDU), who has overseen a massive increase in crime in his state in recent years — including violent crimes and knife crimes committed by foreigners — celebrated the police raids.

“Digital arsonists must not be able to hide behind their cell phones or computers,” he said.

His state conducted 14 of the approximately 130 nationwide cases in a “day of action” against so-called hate postings.

In fact, even as the number of such raids has exploded in recent years, violent crime has also reached record highs in Germany, in large part due to mass immigration, which is a statistical fact. However, police resources have shifted towards targeting hate speech violations, including those complaining about rising crime in relation to mass immigration, with even politicians, such as Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) Marie-Thérèse Kaiser, being targeted in such cases.

Germany now routinely has these “days of action” against citizens who commit “violations” against new and more draconian speech laws in Germany. In some cases, a national scandal has erupted when the details of the cases became public, such as the case of a pensioner, Stefan Niehoff, having his house raided over calling former Economic Minister Robert Habeck an “idiot.”

As the details of the case show, Niehoff became a major target for speaking out against the raid, with the state eventually dropping the “idiot” charge, the one they raided his house for, and pursuing other ones. He was eventually convicted for a variety of retweets despite these retweets being explicitly anti-Nazi posts that targeted left-wing politicians.

In another case, someone criticized CDU leader Friedrich Merz as “drunken.”

It is unclear who was targeted in the latest raids and what statements they made. Most cases allegedly involve right-wing extremist statements, but a small number of cases involve extremist religious or left-wing extremist content. It should also be noted that Alternative for Germany (AfD) co-leader Alice Weidel has also filed a number of such complaints, a point she has been criticized for. However, it is unclear if anyone’s house was raided over any of her complaints. So far, there have been no reports of such raids based on any complaints Weidel has filed.

CDU Interior Minister Reul said there needs to be a clear distinction between opinion and hate speech.

“What you don’t do in the real world isn’t appropriate digitally either. It’s time for more attitude, both offline and online,” he said.

However, the federal interior ministry made a similar argument last year while conducting raids against multiple homes of Compact Magazine journalists, as well as the magazine’s publisher. The raids were followed by a ban on Compact Magazine and its erasure from the internet. A top federal court has now ruled this week that the ban was not constitutional and constituted a violation of freedom of the press in a major blow to the federal interior ministry.

These house raids are conducted with the support of various reporting centers run by left-leaning organizations. Essentially, a center reports a post, which then forwards this to the federal police for action.

Last year, there were 10,732 such cases recorded, which is quadruple the number of 2021.

As an example of the type of raids going on, last year, a 14-year-old German boy had his house raided for posting a banned hashtag on TikTok, which translated to “Everything for Germany.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/german-police-raid-170-homes-over-hate-speech-insults-politicians

Chilling Jurisprudence Of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson

 by Jonathan Turley,

For most citizens, the release of Supreme Court opinions is about as exciting as watching paint dry, particularly in a case dealing with the limits of district courts in issuing universal injunctions.

Yet Friday’s Trump v. CASA case included a virtual slugfest between Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The decision was one of the biggest of the term. The Court moved to free the Administration from an onslaught of orders from district judges seeking to block the President in areas ranging from the downsizing of government to immigration.

However, it was the departure of the normally staid court analysis that attracted the most attention.

The tenor of Jackson’s language shocked not just many court watchers, but her colleagues.

It seemed ripped from the signs carried just a couple of weeks earlier in the “No Kings” protests.

The Court often deals with issues that deeply divide the nation.

Yet it tends to calm the waters by engaging in measured, reasoned analysis — showing the nation that these are matters upon which people can have good-faith disagreements.

But that culture of civility and mutual respect has been under attack in recent years.

Not long ago, the Court was rocked by the leaking of the draft of the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. That was followed by furious protests against conservative justices at their homes and an attempted assassination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

There was also a change in the tenor of the exchanges in oral argument and opinions between the justices.

Recently, during the argument over the use of national injunctions in May, Chief Justice John Roberts was clearly fed up with Justice Sotomayor interrupting government counsel with pointed questions and commentary, finally asking Sotomayor, “Will you please let us hear his answer?”

This hyperbole seemed to border on hysteria in the Jackson dissent. The most junior justice effectively accused her colleagues of being toadies for tyranny.

It proved too much for the majority, which pushed back on the overwrought rhetoric.

While the language may seem understated in comparison to what we regularly hear in Congress, it was the equivalent of a virtual cage match for the Court.

Some of us have argued that our system is working just as designed, particularly as these issues work through the courts. The courts have ruled for and against this Administration as they struggle with the difficult lines of authority between the branches.

Liberals who claim “democracy is dying” seem to view democracy as getting what you want when you want it.

It was, therefore, distressing to see Jackson picking up on the “No Kings” theme, warning about drifting toward “a rule-of-kings governing system”

She said that limiting the power of individual judges to freeze the entire federal government was “enabling our collective demise. At the very least, I lament that the majority is so caught up in minutiae of the Government’s self-serving, finger-pointing arguments that it misses the plot.”

The “minutiae” dismissed by Jackson happen to be the statutory and constitutional authority of federal courts. It is the minutiae that distinguish the rule of law from mere judicial impulse.

Justice Barrett clearly had had enough with the self-aggrandizing rhetoric. She delivered a haymaker in writing that “JUSTICE JACKSON would do well to heed her own admonition: “[E]veryone, from the President on down, is bound by law.” Ibid. That goes for judges too.”

She added, “We will not dwell on JUSTICE JACKSON’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself. We observe only this: JUSTICE JACKSON decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.”

In other words, the danger to democracy is found in judges acting like kings. Barrett explained to her three liberal colleagues that “when a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too.”

The last term has laid bare some of the chilling jurisprudence of Justice Jackson, including a certain exasperation with having to closely follow the text of laws.  (In an earlier dissent this term, Jackson lashed out against the limits of textualism and argued for courts to free themselves from the confines — or shall we say the “minutiae” — of statutory language). In this opinion, Barrett slams Jackson for pursuing other diversions “because analyzing the governing statute involves boring ‘legalese.'” Again, what Jackson refers to as “legalese” is the heart of the judicial function in constraining courts under Article III.

Untethered by statutory or constitutional text, it allows the courts to float free from the limits of the Constitution.

For many, that is not an escape into minutiae but madness without clear lines for judicial power.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and the best-selling author of “The Indispensable Right.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/turley-chilling-jurisprudence-justice-ketanji-brown-jackson

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/eco-hypocrites-take-hundreds-private-jets-bezos-wedding

George Tidmarsh and the Fight to Remove Hidden Toxins from America’s Food and Drug Supply

Public trust in health agencies has faltered as perceptions have grown that science is increasingly politicized. This is driving calls for a rigorous reexamination of the substances deemed safe in everyday American life. Dr. George Tidmarsh is part of the movement.

As a pediatrician and biotech executive, his work challenges long-standing FDA assumptions about food and pharmaceutical additives. With a particular focus on talc—an industrial agent now under international scrutiny for potential carcinogenicity—Tidmarsh is pushing for a new era of public health transparency. His efforts focus on regulatory standards, with calls for reforming the editorial practices of scientific journals. He wants to prioritize independent data over institutional inertia.

Dr. Tidmarsh is a neonatologist by training, former CEO of La Jolla Pharmaceuticals, and a contributor to academic journals. “None of my training over decades really focused on toxic additives to nutrition, to food supply, to infant formulas,” he says. That realization fuels his latest mission: to put science—not politics—back at the center of public health.

Tidmarsh recently published a review in the Journal of the Academy of Public Health that reevaluates the FDA’s long-standing list of food and drug additives labeled “generally regarded as safe,” or GRAS. Chief among his concerns is talc, an additive with a long history of use and a growing body of evidence linking it to serious health risks. “The revelation for me was that talc is added to our food supply,” Tidmarsh says. “It literally took me weeks to realize this… I kept knocking myself on the head and saying, wow.”

Talc has been used in pharmaceuticals and food manufacturing as a lubricant and bulking agent. It ensures powders flow through machinery and that pills press cleanly. “It did play a role,” he explains, “but we didn’t know at the time” that it could be harmful. “There’s no villain… it was done with good intent, but we now have updated data and we need to replace it.”

That updated data includes the recent conclusion from the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer that talc is “probably carcinogenic,” leading the European Union to ban it in cosmetics by 2027. Tidmarsh emphasizes that modern alternatives like magnesium stearate are widely available, safer, and often cheaper. “In fact, it may be… less expensive to replace talc,” he notes. Many generic versions of popular drugs like Lipitor and Synthroid already use alternatives. “One of my recommendations to the FDA is to alert pharmacies… to dispense and interchange to the cheaper generic drugs that do not contain talc.”

He sees this kind of scientific reevaluation as long overdue. “Why have we not examined the safety of additives to our food supply?” he asks. “It’s long overdue.” Tidmarsh credits Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary for “elevating the discussion” and motivating his deep-dive into the overlooked additives. “Public health is a major part of what my responsibility is,” he says.

His focus on transparency and reform extends beyond food and drugs. Tidmarsh is also a driving force behind the Journal of the Academy of Public Health, which seeks to challenge the gatekeeping and politicization he says became rampant during the pandemic. “Editors in general of major scientific journals exercised political interdiction to ensure that a certain narrative was maintained,” he says. “That is absolutely antithetical to the scientific process.”

Unlike traditional journals, this one allows any accepted member of its academy—scientists vetted by a board of directors—to publish without editorial veto. Crucially, the reviews of these publications are also public. “The evaluation and review of the publication… is done actually in public,” he says. “We hope to eliminate the politicization of science.”

Tidmarsh sees a greater cost to inaction than to reform. “It’s very possible that some of these additives have triggered the explosion in some of the problems we’re facing,” he says, pointing to inflammatory bowel diseases and the use of talc in medical treatments specifically designed to provoke inflammation. “We’re ingesting talc,” he says. “Why not prevent it?”

The stakes, he argues, go beyond price tags. “We may save billions of dollars and improve the quality of life by eliminating some of these substances,” he says. As for the pushback, he describes it as minimal. “The only pushback I’ve seen was a Wall Street Journal editorial board piece, which was unsourced,” he says. “I don’t understand why anyone would oppose this.”

Tidmarsh rejects the notion that science ever settles. “That is an oxymoron phrase,” he says. He cites new revelations about gravity and the shift in pediatric guidance around peanut allergies as proof that scientific understanding must evolve. “This is… an extension of that principle,” he says. “To question their conclusions, question their practices, incorporate new information.”

He believes science can regain public trust while he acknowledges that the American people don’t trust some agencies any longer. “My hope is that we will move science and these health agencies back to a place where they are the gold standard.”

https://thefederalnewswire.com/stories/673625131-weekend-interview-george-tidmarsh-and-the-fight-to-remove-hidden-toxins-from-america-s-food-and-drug-supply

A welcome check on activist judges

 Federal judges across the country, selected deliberatively by activist organizations, have issued more than 25 universal injunctions halting enforcement of President Donald Trump‘s executive actions since January on issues ranging from immigration to higher education to national security. These injunctions have significantly hampered Trump’s ability to govern the nation as he promised he would during the 2024 election. The Supreme Court put an end to the practice Friday, vacating a lower court’s order that halted implementation of Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s decision makes it explicitly clear that the majority’s holding has nothing to do with the underlying legality of Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order, a policy that attempts to deny citizenship to children born by certain classes of aliens who give birth in the United States. The primary dissent, written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor and joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, focuses almost exclusively on the legal merits of Trump’s order which it describes as “patently unconstitutional” and completely contrary to “the Constitution’s text, history, this Court’s precedents, federal law, and Executive Branch practice.”

Setting the legal merits of Trump’s order aside, Barrett’s decision is far more concerned with the legality of the nationwide injunction the district court entered against the Trump administration. The order went as far as to forbid even the development of legal guidance on how states should implement the policy. As a threshold question, Barrett addressed whether the Judiciary Act of 1789 bestowed the power to issue universal injunctions on federal courts. She rightly concluded that it does not.

Federal courts have always had the power, and have exercised it, to enter injunctive relief between the named parties in a given suit. Federal civil procedure also has a well-developed body of law, Rule 23 class actions, allowing for similarly situated possible plaintiffs to be covered by one case. But universal injunctions go far beyond class action jurisdiction, enforcing remedies on everyone, not just smaller groups which, by rule, must have something in common that sets them apart from the general public.

Barrett methodically reviewed the historical record, establishing that universal injunctions did not exist in the High Court of Chancery in England, on which the Judiciary Act of 1789 was modeled, and did not exist for decades after that until 1963. Even then, universal injunctions stayed relatively rare, avoiding Supreme Court attention, until the presidency of George W. Bush. Since that time, the number of universal injunctions has exploded.

As Justice Brett Kavanaugh explains in his concurrence, the growth of universal injunctions in recent years is understandable. “That trend is in part the result of the increasing number of major new executive actions by recent Presidential administrations (of both political parties) that have had difficulty passing significant new legislation through Congress,” Kavanaugh wrote. In other words, as the legislative and executive branches have become increasingly incapable of working together to pass legislation, the executive branch has increasingly taken it upon itself to assert new powers or use older grants of power in novel ways, and federal courts have been forced to step in an adjudicate which actions are legal and which are not. But this does not empower judges to step beyond the power granted to them by Congress.

Barrett reminded Jackson of this fact in a stinging rebuke to her separately signed dissent. “Federal courts do not exercise general oversight of the Executive Branch,” Barrett wrote. “They resolve cases and controversies consistent with the authority Congress has given them. When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too.”

“Observing the limits on judicial authority—including, as relevant here, the boundaries of the Judiciary Act of 1789—is required by a judge’s oath to follow the law,” Barrett continued. “Justice Jackson would do well to heed her own admonition: ‘Everyone, from the President on down, is bound by law.’ That goes for judges too.”

Going forward, lower court judges still have the power to enjoin the executive branch as to the named parties involved in a suit. Barrett acknowledges that this will often be difficult when the plaintiff is a large state and a federal policy is bound to affect the state if the government is allowed to go forward with the new policy in other jurisdictions. But Barrett wisely advised judges that they should not seek to set national policy and should instead cabin their injunctive relief as narrowly as possible.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/3456539/welcome-check-on-activist-judges-supreme-court-injunctions/

Warren Buffett donates record $6B Berkshire shares including Gates gift

 Warren Buffett donated on Friday another $6 billion of Berkshire Hathaway stock to the Gates Foundation and four family charities, his biggest annual donation since he began giving away his fortune nearly two decades ago.

The donation of about 12.36 million Berkshire Class B shares boosted Buffett's overall giving to the charities to well over $60 billion.

He donated 9.43 million shares to the Gates Foundation; 943,384 shares to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation; and 660,366 shares to each of three charities led respectively by his children Howard, Susie, and Peter: the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, Sherwood Foundation and NoVo Foundation.

Warren Buffett still owns 13.8% of Berkshire's stock, based on reported shares outstanding.

His $152 billion net worth prior to Friday's donations made him the world's fifth-richest person, according to Forbes magazine.

Buffett would rank sixth after the donations, which surpassed the $5.3 billion he donated last June. He donated another $1.14 billion to the family charities last November.

In a statement, Buffett maintained he does not intend to sell any Berkshire shares.

Now 94, Buffett began giving away his fortune in 2006.

He changed his will last year, designating 99.5% of his remaining fortune after his death to a charitable trust overseen by his children.

They will have about a decade to distribute the money, and must decide where it goes unanimously. Susie Buffett is 71, Howard Buffett is 70, and Peter Buffett is 67.

Warren Buffett has led Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire since 1965.

The $1.05 trillion conglomerate owns close to 200 businesses including Geico car insurance and the BNSF railroad, and dozens of stocks including Apple and American Express.

Susie Buffett leads the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, which funds reproductive health and is named for her mother, who was Warren Buffett's first wife.

The Sherwood Foundation supports Nebraska nonprofits and early childhood education. The Howard G. Buffett Foundation focuses on global hunger, combating human trafficking and mitigating conflicts. The NoVo Foundation has initiatives focused on marginalized girls and women, and on indigenous communities.

Buffett said last June that donations to the Gates Foundation would end when he dies.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/warren-buffett-donates-record-6-004953265.html

Cuomo’s fat ego isn’t done harming NYC: Now he’s helping Mamdani become our next mayor

 He just couldn’t bear to do the right thing and drop completely out of the race: Andrew Cuomo let the Friday deadline pass, so he’ll be on the November ballot as an independent — and so increase the chances that Zohran Mamdani becomes the next mayor.

Tuesday’s humiliation wasn’t enough to get the message through.

Thus, even if he doesn’t campaign at all, he’ll still draw some votes that should go to a non-Mamdani candidate who can win.

It’s the height of egotistical arrogance, but this is Andrew Cuomo we’re talking about: As long as it serves his bitter, twisted and vengeful needs, he doesn’t care about the consequences for the people of this city.

Of course, that attitude explains his historic collapse despite a huge lead in the polls just weeks ago, and a ginormous $25 million in donations for “independent” pro-Cuomo spending: Democratic voters are sick of him.

And the same will prove true of non-Democrats in November: Whatever lead there might seem to be in polling now (especially in polls pushed by consultants who’d profit if he stays in) is mere name recognition.

Why would moderates and conservatives rally behind him?

They know Cuomo helped inflict “criminal justice reform” on New York, feeding crime and disorder in the city; he made it harder to get mentally ill homeless into treatment; he gave us the botched legalization of pot, soaring electric bills, tighter rent laws that slam small landlords, the subway Summer of Hell and “congestion” tolls — not to mention his literally deadly “leadership” during COVID.

Yet he’s plainly still in denial: “I’m looking at the numbers from last night. I want to get an idea of what the general election looks like and what landscape looks like, and what the issues are, and then make the decision,” he arrogantly told The Post on Wednesday.

Huh? After his tired run in the primary, Cuomo is a dead man walking even in the eyes his big-money donors, who are looking to shift their support to Mayor Eric Adams or some late-entry independent.

By staying on the ballot in what’s then at least a four-man race, Andrew Cuomo only makes it easier for Mamdani to sneak to victory with as little as 30% of the vote — meaning he needs only his hard-left base, plus those who’ll always vote for the Democratic line and a handful more New Yorkers he can charm into his camp.

Andrew Cuomo made New York less affordable, less safe and less livable: He’s already proved he’s the perfect foil for Mamdani.

Yet — in some faint hope of somehow winning redemption and a platform he imagines could let him seek the White House — Cuomo stands poised to help elect a Democratic socialist who’d make all the city’s problems even worse.

He could’ve served the people of New York by setting aside his ego and removing his name from the November ballot, but Andrew Cuomo just couldn’t let his final move in politics be doing the right thin?

https://nypost.com/2025/06/27/opinion/drop-out-of-the-mayors-race-now-andrew-cuomo/