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One thing to think about here, is how they found Niehoff's retweet, and with whom this tweet originated. It looks like he unretweeted it, because i can't find it on his timeline, but it's very possible Habeck or his activist supporters tried to initiate prosecutions against everyone who retweeted that image. I can't imagine how this small account came to their notice otherwise. We're only hearing about one case, but how many were actually indicted for this?

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Funny coincidence in the UK, top journalist Allison Pearson had a visit from the police for a year old tweet. It's almost as if all the crazed Leftists are working together because they cannot bear to have their egos poked.

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I think it's misleading labeling it "the crazed Leftists" when in fact one needs to focus on how deep this really goes. The NWO has tentacles everywhere. Also, see how "they" create divisions among us, with labels, overlooking the fact that we are all in this together.

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Agree, they will not stop with the division because it is a very, very important device: divide and conquer. It must be recognized for what it is...division is literally the easiest trick the enemy employs. Any unity, any unity at all is a threat because it comes from God, it's opposite is obvious.

Families, churches, governments, communities...any and all relationships are targets.

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Leftist is an unsatisfactory label yet we are most decidedly not all in this together. Some people will haul you off to jail for wrongthink. We may disagree on what to call those types but they are a danger to the rest of us.

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I've been using the term "Swamp" because it captures the gist of a rotted-but-entitled "ruling class" nomenklatura, who act so cohesively to maintain a power monopoly in our current dystopia.

And even though that ruling class is left-of-centre (preferring State dominance of the economy and socio-educational matters), there are Leftists among us who are committed to truth-seeking, free speech & association, and peace who are great allies to democratic-populist Jeffersonian small-government advocates who are now on the ascendant.

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"crazed leftist" is redundant.

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Instaed of crazed, substitute "evil".

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I read Allison's article, it was very wise of her to inform the public of what had happened. Apparently police tell her it is "unethical" to tell the public that the police came round and complained on account of an unnamed tweet on behalf of an unnamed accuser ("no, it's victim", said the police).

Such stories have to get through to the public so that even the most mainstream, politically unaware citizen realizes what his state can and will do to him, if provoked.

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it is ok to check the forces, but in this particular case things were not as they are reported here.

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Which do you mean, Allison's or the one in Germany?

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Their behavior makes everyone realize how true it really is that they are professional morons!!! Prosecuting anyone who notices their professional moronia only makes everyone even more aware of the vastness and pervasiveness of their professional moronia!!!

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As Matt Taibbi and others have exposed, there's a whole network of NGOs and government-, academic-, and intelligence-adjacent organizations focused on monitoring and reporting wrongthink. We know even small accounts get reported. Perhaps that's what happened here.

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Prperly called "Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter" or "Geheime Informator".

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I visited Niehoff's X page and retweeted his retweet of a tweet reporting his case together with the moron meme. Nice streisand effect. My bathrobe is just fine, in case of an early morning visit. I would not stand out negatively compared to The Dude and Arthur Dent.

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If you're curious: https://x.com/janinisabel/status/1856572236863304056

If this will get eugy in trouble, happy to delete.

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Now retweeted as "Shampoo(n)gate".

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It is also not clear to me how they found the guy IRL. Did they force Twitter to give the details of his account, possibly the IP?

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i assume they required twitter to disclose the verification phone number and looked him up that way.

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I've read that Twitter provides information and Germany has the highest number of information request.

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Either would work. Probably easy-peasy for the government.

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Years ago, data protection was absolutely paramount for leftist parties in Germany.

In the 80ies there were big protest about the state doing a census.

It is mindblowing how the German left made a 180 degree turn (360 turn, if you were our foreign minister) on absolute all principles.

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🤣😂🤣😂

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I'm telling you man, Germany clearly needs an antifascist protection rampart separating it from the rest of the internet. It wouldn't be like that icky "Great Firewall of China" because this would have the *right* people behind it.

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Antifaschistischer Schutzwall! Oh wait...

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And the irony of using *that* occasion to make the demand!

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It’s a classic cia kind of move, really. Just like inserting agents in the campaign itself. Start the false rumor then prosecute anyone who repeats it.

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J6 vibes.

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Seeing that the NetzDG is the product of pressure exerted by The Blob (see Mike Benz), I wonder if there is some connection to these cases.

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the document clearly says that this meme was only one of several things.

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Remind me to never move to Germany.

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Germany has a habit of moving to you.

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oh, but you'll miss out on the weather

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Germany doesn't have weather. It has only climate change!

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LOL! you would think they would be happy to take a chance on the change of their climate.

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Three weeks of fog and now it started to snow.

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And it is the hottest year since records began.

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even under the Paris Agreements worst nightmare predictions, the German climate will never be balmy. : (

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But German politicians are barmy.

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Just think of how bad it would be if climate change hadn't abolished winter.

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hilarious

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You should give the UK a miss too, see below.

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I moved away (for other reasons 30 years ago) and ended up in Australia.

A woman there was arrested and prosecuted by wearing a mask that had something like "Dictator Dan" (referring to then PM of Victoria Dan Andrews).

Police also arrested a highly pregnant woman after 10 pm in front of her little kids and partner in her own house for trying to organize a protest on Facebook in a park in a small Victorian town.

Be careful what you ask for. :-)

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Of course... nothing like France... Oh, wait!

UK? Goddammit!

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Stay where you are and force-ably, unapologetically change the criminal rhetoric.

(If applicable)

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Exactly how would being called a moron make one's job "substantially more difficult"? Any claimed reason would be a tacit admission that those targeted have such thin skin that an insult sends them into paralyzing depression. And if that's the case, it proves apt the description of moron and further proves them unfit for their position.

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I also find it curious that we should not be making politicians' jobs more difficult. Aren't they supposed to face resistance and criticism from the people, isn't that the whole idea of DeMOcrACy?

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It seems to me that you have ommitted the important legal condition here, that it is an insult that triggers these (ludicrous) paragraphs.

I encourage you to adequately expose the fact that Germany has had a tradition of criminalizing insults generally, long preceding the woke regime and plandemic.

Could you do that for me please?

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I've commented on the statutes (specifically § StGB 185) against 'Beleidigung' from time to time and it's even in my comment policy. Most of these prosecutions – which were basically unheard of before the present government – appear to involve the enhanced penalties outlined under § StGB 188, which is why I mention that specifically here.

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You don’t understand. When they say “democracy,” or especially “our democracy,” it means “shut up and do as you’re told!”

If you keep that in mind, everything they do and say makes perfect sense.

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Have you seen the marvelous video where they replace "Our Democracy" with "Our Bureaucracy"? https://x.com/adamscrabble/status/1857276822351732995

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💯!!!

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If you are a retail clerk that kind of abuse does make the job intolerable.

If you are a *government minister* taking that kind of criticism and mean commentary is part of the job itself.

It is yet another example of very powerful people using protections or even courtesies designed for actually vulnerable people for themselves. No doubt they would love to call criticism of their policy making choices workplace harassment because it is related to work and it made them feel bad. Ergo: same same.

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This is beautiful. In a better world, your two sentences alone would banish those policies (they're not Law) to regrettable history.

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Logical argument would only work if the German legal system followed due process, but it clearly does not do this. Instead, it pursues the arbitrary will of the political class. If some entitled German politician does not like your face, then your features are making them feel unsafe, which is a terrorist threat, and also making their jobs more difficult, which is subversion, so off to prison with you!

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In German, it’s a crime for having a backpfeifengesicht or claiming that your minister of economic blah blah has backpfeifengesicht? Is it a noun?

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I suspect that being a moron in fact makes their job easier. How else could one stomach the things they have to do and say?

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"In consequence it is now perfectly legal in Germany to suggest that a Minister of Economic Affairs somewhere – perhaps even Habeck himself – might resemble a train station alcoholic, even though it is presently illegal to also suggest Habeck might also be a moron."

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Well, you know, there’s treatment for alcoholics so long as they take the first step, and an intervention is first often necessary.

But being a moron is incurable.

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Ah. It's an application of identity politics. Inherent characteristics and so forth.

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Sorting games are the first ones toddlers play.

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As Americans I really don’t think we appreciate enough our freedom to talk shit about our politicians. Therefore I think we should celebrate this by taking the time to be mean and rude to all our officials who deserve it.

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Don't we already do that?😉

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Not nearly enough. They run around loose in public all the time, without fear of chastisement.

Remember: the appropriate term of address for a Congressman or Senator is You Lying Rat Bastard.

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While it's becoming a widely-reported reaction in the US that people are realizing they're no longer so afraid to say the wrong thing, it's important for us to remember that we're just a tiny island of hope in the western world. Let's hope that, like Don Alfonso, Stefan Niehoff will be eventually vindicated.

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Perhaps this year's Christmas gift to loved ones should be those little cards from charities saying "someone donated to us in your name" and the charity of choice is a free speech defender (not the ACLU of course since they've joined the Dark Side).

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Maybe a subscription to eugyppius or Racket ;)

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I'm serious about the legal support though. As eugyppius notes they are going after the little guys to terrorize everyone else.

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I didn't realize you meant that kind of defender. Good idea.

I wonder if such does exist in Germany…?

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We know who can tell us...

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No one has lost the plot like the aclu and la leche league.

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Ain't it so.

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This is a great idea!

I donate to the legal efforts of anyone that the government is going after because they spoke their mind. CJ Hopkins and Kulvinder Kaur most recently.

In the before times I thought the ACLU did this. Who is doing it now?

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I think there's a patchwork of legal assistance organizations, each specializing in its own realm, such as FIRE. But there's nothing like what the ACLU used to be before special interests came and ate its common sense and decency.

In my view what's desperately needed is a clearinghouse directory so that any person under threat anywhere can access a pro bono lawyer/a lawyer whose fees and expenses will be covered by the national organization.

Perhaps now with the Trump victory there will be more lawyers willing to do this work.

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We have that in the UK, the Free Speech Union which is run by Toby Young, who also started the Lockdown Sceptics website (now the Daily Sceptic).

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I wonder how many of us are just waiting for that knock at the door? I've even imagined where I'd stash my laptop in that eventuality. England, where you can be locked up for kicking a police van's tender back wheels, seems to be on a par with Germany. I reckon that we both lost WW2.

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Nazi Germany persisted in East Germany, where the Soviets just changed the flag and the color of the post boxes without changing the personnel or the ideology very much. When Germany was unified, Communazis like Merkel and Scholz took over the whole state. There has been a continuous regime since 1933, uninterrupted except for the loss and regain of some territory.

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I wouldn’t want to be the prosecutor in this case. How does one demonstrate that the minister is not a moron?

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Truth is not a defense in such cases.

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In all seriousness I think you have to put him on the stand. At least you would in America.

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German politicians, especially Habeck are absolutely fucken idiots! Come get me, ya bunch of eurofags! Those people actually give a new dimension to terms like "cunt" and "idiot", well beyond whatever has been imagined previously. It's difficult to put it into words that do it justice.

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Fee haff fays unt means of shutting you up!

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Especially if they put you in jail when you do.

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For me - and for a large number of Germans - the monthly fee of €10 for access to the online edition of 'Die Welt' is indispensable because this is where we get to read the twice-weekly blogs of 'Don Alphonso'. He is unsurpassed in creating new German words which are both right on point as well as utterly hilarious. His blogs are untranslatable into English because of his mastery of nuancing the German language while gently ridiculing the establishment, especially the Red-Green Berlin Cabal of government and meejah.

And yep - he won in court and everybody can now speak about that Minister for Economics not looking out of place in that collection of trainstation forecourt alcoholics. Long may he be allowed to write - and thanks for mentioning him, Eugyppius!

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i too love Don Alphonso, I've read him for years

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"... the highly advanced democratic freedoms that we enjoy in Germany."

Your freedoms are indeed impressive. But do not become complacent - the Canadians are working to overtake Germany in the freedom arms race. Trudeau's new bill provides for penalties up to life in prison PLUS imprisonment for crimes you have not yet committed, but probably might. Three years in the slammer for a tweet sounds good, but Germany can and must do better!

And don't even get me started on England. What the hell is wrong with everybody???

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I believe it's the WEC"s enormous reach and power, thus this disease is present in so many western societies at once.

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What is the WEC?

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The World Economic Forum

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They don't have a 2nd Amendment!

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Lot of good that did Doug Mackey

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Maybe the new regime will be less Gestapo like?

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Mr. E, you constantly insult cretins like Habeck as far as I know. Are you not afraid of a police raid at your residence? Or are you exempt by using English which the German justice system cannot read?

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if they want to go after you, they will. they can get your for absolutely anything. it may not stick at court or on appeal, but the statutes are so broadly written and the prosecutions so arbitrary and crazy I've decided that trying to tiptoe rhetorically is not really sensible. I worry about these things a little bit but not too much. Unfortunately, they seem presently to target smaller accounts, as I guess they imagine this is a better tactic for intimidating ordinary people.

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"it may not stick at court or on appeal" but still, the process is the punishment.

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very much so.

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Nevertheless, lawyer up, mein Freund, and get a Go Fund Me page ready. I will help if I can.

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Same!

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If I had my computers, tablets and phone confiscated--even for a day--it would have been severely painful. You can barely function without your gadgets.

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