I just returned from Berlin this morning and wanted to share a few pictures and recommendations for those on the blog who may want to visit this extraordinary city. This is a city that has something for everyone from food to music to art to history.
Speaking at the World Forum on free speech was hardly an inviting prospect. As expected, many of the leading anti-free speech figures, including Hillary Clinton, gathered with their European allies in Berlin. I heard other Americans fueling the common narrative that democracy is dying in the United States and that we are now an autocracy. However, I had one key ally here, my friend and great civil libertarian Nadine Strossen. We both spoke on the need for Europe to increase protections for free speech:
Former President Bill Clinton received the top award at the World Forum. Ironically, at the dinner, I was seated virtually next to the Clintons at the adjoining table. It was a curious spot since I testified in favor of his impeachment and have been arguably the most vocal critic of Hillary Clinton over her pronounced anti-free speech views. Surrounded by world leaders who praised his record as president, Clinton gave a short but very personal speech in accepting the award.
Once the business end of the trip was satisfied, I was able to explore this extraordinary and vibrant city. I have found Germans to be unfailingly friendly and helpful. It is also easy to be an American tourist in Berlin. Many Germans speak English, and you will find it easy to navigate. If there was one disappointing aspect, it was the level of graffiti throughout the city. No site or surface seems spared anywhere in the city.
One of the highlights was visiting the Berlin Cathedral on the famed Museum Island. Initially built in 1894 by order of Emperor William II, the cathedral was heavily damaged in World War II but lovingly restored. It is magnificent.
The pipe organ, built by Wilhelm Sauer, towers above the space with its massive dome.
It also contains the dynastic tomb (House of Hohenzollern).
I then ventured to the top of the dome. This may be a challenge for many of our viewers and you should not start if you have doubts (they emphasize that you can only go forward on the hundreds of steps on the narrowing series of stone and wooden steps:
However, if you can manage it, the payoff is considerable with a panoramic view of this lovely city:
That view is a great start to any exploration of the city. What you find is a city with large parks, public art, and beautiful buildings along its gentle rivers:
One nice thing about Berlin is that you always have a reference point in the Fernsehturm next to the Alexanderplatz. The tallest structure in the city, the television tower offers an instant locational point:
As you walk through the city, you will see an abundance of pubs and restaurants, including many cafes. The food in Berlin is wonderful from the traditional goulash (like the deer goulash below) to the Schnitzel. However, it is the beer that is a particular joy. Every restaurant has different beers, and you cannot go wrong. While I am a bit wimpy in preferring the lighter beer, it was fun to try a range of options.
You can visit World War II and Cold War sites. One popular start is the iconic Checkpoint Charlie, the crossing point between East and West Berlin featured in every spy movie of the period. I am afraid that the visit may prove underwhelming. All that remains is the famous guard house, though an assortment of American fast-food restaurants now guards the checkpoint:
A visit to the Berlin Wall Memorial is more substantive and memorable. A display shows the hundreds of those killed trying to escape communism, including jumping from windows to land in West Berlin. You can ascend a nearby tower to oversee the wall area. Portions of the wall are preserved as is a guard tower:
Some of these victims jumped from homes that bordered the line. These homes were largely in East Berlin, but they extended a few feet into West Berlin. Before the East Germans tore down the homes, they were an irresistible temptation. Indeed, the first victim was an older woman who followed the practice of attaching a note to a rock and dropping it out the window. The idea was for the local firefighters to wait below to catch you, but on this occasion, an actual fire had to be put out.
As the police came knocking as part of the sweep of the area on her apartment building at Bernauer Strasse 48 , nurse Ida Siekmann decided that there was no turning back. She threw a mattress out the window and tried to land on it. She suffered broken bones and died on the way to the Lazarus Hospital.
This exhibit shows how these buildings extended beyond the wall line (shown by the rectangular sign):
One can also visit World War II sites including the Soviet monument to the thousands of Soviet soldiers who died in the battle for Berlin. Ironically, Stalin’s obsession with capturing Berlin led to a vastly increased number of casualties. Indeed, some historians believe that the Soviets killed more of their own soldiers than did the collapsing Wehrmacht. For many Berliners, the memorial must have brought painful memories, particularly in light of the systemic raping of German women by Soviet troops as retaliation for the German atrocities committed in Russia.
The memorial is guarded by T-32 tanks and the famed Russian ML-20 152mm gun-howitzer artillery pieces:
Of course, the iconic image of Berlin remains the 18th Century Brandenburg Gate.
In day or dusk or night, it is an inspiring sight:
Berlin is a truly unique city and well worth an extended visit. Berlin’s history is inextricably linked to our own from the defeat of the Nazis to the Berlin airlift to the Cold War to fall of the Berlin Wall.
From the people to the food to the history, Berlin is wundervoll.
Former Bill Clinton advisor, Mark Penn calls for Chief Justice Roberts to place guardrails on Circuit Judges
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Judges uncorked
Chief Justice Roberts should worry less about impeachment charges going no where and more about district judges who have been forum shopped and are massively overstepping their role.
This latest ruling to ban DOGE from reviewing Social Security information to find fraud is nonsense. The government can and should review all its data for possible fraud — this is not a search warrant — this is data in its possession that modern data analysis can analyze effectively. And the department routinely hires consultants who have access to this information. Rather than demanding privacy safeguards, which might have made sense, the judge barred all review of social security data to hunt down fraud. It’s time for Roberts to step in here and put some guardrails on what these lone judges can do as they are routinely exercising vast powers far in excess of what is reasonable.
https://x.com/Mark_Penn/status/1902884312094998591
You mean guardrails on district judges?
I’d like that too but I doubt Roberts has the unilateral power. Congress has legislation in the works. There needs to be a lot of legislation to address all the ways the district judges are overreaching.
I do not understand, the illegal aliens have no protection or rights under U.S. law, how can a judge react to any objection of their treatment except to say, they are not protected? I think the judges should be ignored and when they attempt follow up action against the administration then the facts will come out.
Actual swift impeachments would put all judges and justices on notice that the “manifest tenor” must be implemented and strictly adhered to.
If judges and justices are not impressed by vigorous enforcement, some other vexatious remedy must be revealed and brought bear.
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“…courts…must…declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void.”
“…men…do…what their powers do not authorize, [and] what they forbid.”
“[A] limited Constitution … can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing … To deny this would be to affirm … that men acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.”
– Alexander Hamilton
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Executive power is vested “in a President” who exercises that power over Social Security, the Department of Education, and all other departments and agencies.
The President and his agents, such as DOGE, enjoy absolute executive power sufficient to obtain and scrutinize all records throughout the executive branch.
We’ll have “actual swift impeachment” of judges when pigs can fly. Your mind lives in la-la land and is of little use in this world.
Republicans have been salivating over Social Security for years. Their attempts to privatize the SSA will be futile. Likewise the USPS.
Jonathan: Looks like the deranged MAGA crowd on this blog has nothing of substance to offer this Saturday. Except for urging that “domestic terrorists” who are blowing up or setting fire to Tesla cars and trucks should be sent to the gulag in El Salvador. Never mind due process or the presumption of innocence. Forget about “proof beyond a reasonable doubt”. Trials? Who needs trials when DJT and his AG can simply declare the people who don’t like Tesla products are “domestic terrorists” not deserving of the protections of the Constitution. That’s what some on this blog actually think because they support the idea of an “imperial” presidency without any checks and balances.
So let’s focus on some of the court challenges to DJT’s autocratic rule. And what better place to start is what is happening in the DC courtroom of Chief Judge Boasberg. He has already said he thinks DJT unlawfully invoked the Alien Enemies Act by secretly flying Venezuelan immigrants to the gulag in El Salvador and against his express orders. Boasberg ordered DOJ lawyers to provide, by next Tuesday, an affidavit or declaration by the person or persons in the WH who could provide a rationale for the dubious AEA proclamation and why his orders were ignored.
Then something bizarre happened yesterday. WH reporters asked DOJ about his AEA proclamation and the hearings going on in Boasberg’s courtroom. This was DJT’s response: “I don’t know when it [the AEA proclamation] was signed. I didn’t sign it. Other people handled it”. FACT CHECK: DJT signed the proclamation to deport the Venezuelans on March 14. It’s in the Federal Register, Vol 90, No 53 with what purports to be DJT’s signature. In addition, WH press secy Karoline Leavitt declared in a press briefing shorty after the signing that “President Trump signed a proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act…” Leavitt then went on Fox News and repeated her statement.
So what the hell is going on here? Either DJT actually signed the proclamation or he didn’t. If he didn’t who did– perhaps using the auto-pen? DJT has stated he only uses the auto-pen for “unimportant papers”. A proclamation invoking the AEA for only the fourth time in the entire history of the country is not exactly an “unimportant paper”. It’s more likely than not that DJT did personally sign the proclamation.
DJT is now trying to run away from his declaration. Whether he actually signed the document or it was done with by auto-pen it really doesn’t matter. Both are legally valid. DJT always likes to blame others for his illegal actions. He now wants to throw Marco Rubio or Steven Miller under the bus because he doesn’t want to man-up and take responsibility for his own actions. It’s the “dog ate my homework” defense!
There is one person who is going to get to the bottom of DJT’s subterfuge. That’s Chief Judge Boasberg !
..the amusing Dennis-the-Menace daily fiction offering…
When pigs fly. Dream on in your Dreamland.
What a dumb-ass statement. Videos of the domestic terrorist vandalizing personal property with the intent of displaying a terroristic viewpoint encouraged by a certain group of politicians. Then to have a bureaucratic unelected grandstanding district judge try to change over two hundred year old law. You would think he was a communist trying to start a revolution of idiots. This will not end well in either case.
In Patterson, NJ, the police uniforms now display a Palestinian flag where the American flag used to be. WTF, Patterson?
https://x.com/amuse/status/1903368978459684895
Deportable Treason
Sounds like they need to have their federal funding cut, since they show no allegiance to this nation. That was how the winds of “Civil” War got started.
Secession is not prohibited; therefore, secession is prohibited.
#74. 😂 he said palestine as –my country. Patterson is just one hell pit among many. Great job moohammid.
#74. They have their own evolutionary road stuck in a mud hole. It’s what people don’t understand. All groups are NOT the same. The evolution is different. Pretty cray cray
The Bee is reporting that Trump has agreed to give back the Statue of Liberty in return for all the French territory we liberated in WWII.
Where did it all go wrong?
Did Americans vote for the Statue of Liberty?
The American Founders did not say, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
The American Founders said, “We the People of the United States…secure the Blessings of Liberty to OURSELVES and our POSTERITY….”
If we agree to return that antithetical symbol of “subjugation by the proletariat,” debilitating taxation, collectivist wealth redistribution, and social engineering for the benefit of the unassimilable, does it include “free shipping?”