90 Miles From Tyranny

Sunday, January 16, 2022

German secret service brand Corona critics ‘enemies of the state’

Welcome To The Club!

According to the President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which is the domestic spy agency, demonstrators in the Corona protests can no longer be clearly assigned to right-wing or left-wing extremism since they all "fundamentally reject the democratic state". The pandemic is only an excuse for rising up against the state, it claimed.

Spy chief Thomas Haldenwang believes the “enemies of the state” are the demonstrators against the government’s Corona policy. Haldenwang told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper that these could no longer be clearly assigned to previous categories such as right-wing or left-wing extremism. They are not linked by ideological definitions, but by contempt for the democratic constitutional state and its representatives. “They fundamentally reject our democratic political system.”

These “extremists” only use the pandemic as an excuse to rebel, he said. “Whether it’s Corona or refugee policy. Or the flood disaster: You saw some of the same people trying to give the impression that the state was failing and not doing anything for the people,” said Haldenwang. It was not yet possible to reliably say how big the scene is because it is extremely heterogeneous.
More people are taking to the streets

Haldenwang described the “increasingly strong parallels between PEGIDA and the ‘Corona walks'”. Sometimes the same slogans are shouted. For a long time it looked as if right-wing extremists were trying unsuccessfully to shape the demonstration but “that is currently changing”.

In Saxony, for example, the Freie Sachsen [Free Saxons] group has succeeded in exerting a significant influence on the multifaceted protest movement in the region. In this respect, one can say that right-wing extremists are gaining influence, at least regionally, he complained.

Freie Sachsen is a micro-party that is viewed as “right-wing extremist and anti-constitutional”. The AfD federal board has not put the group on its incompatibility list and has not distanced itself from the group. Instead, the AfD adopted the following formulation: The party is “a bogus giant that the AfD does not have to deal with any further”.

Its representatives have urged resistance to ridiculous police measures during protests against the Corona measures. The “dangerous” Freie Sachsen has developed into one of the many platforms for anti-Corona protests in...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The man who authorities say held hostages inside a Texas synagogue on Saturday demanded the release of a Pakistani woman who is imprisoned nearby on charges of trying to kill American service members in Afghanistan.

The hostage incident ended Saturday night with the hostages safe and the man holding them dead, authorities said.

The woman whose freedom was sought, Aafia Siddiqui, is serving an 86-year prison sentence after being convicted in Manhattan in 2010 on charges that she sought to shoot U.S. military officers while being detained in Afghanistan two years earlier.

For the Justice Department, which had accused Siddiqui of being an al-Qaida operative, it was a significant conviction in the fight against international extremism. But to her supporters, many of whom believed in her innocence, the case embodied what they saw as an overzealous post Sept. 11-American judicial system.

A closer look at the case:

WHO IS AAFIA SIDDIQUI?

She’s a Pakistani neuroscientist who studied in the United States at prestigious institutions — Brandeis University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

She attracted the attention of American law enforcement in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks. Top FBI and Justice Department described her as an “al-Qaida operative and facilitator” at a May 2004 news conference in which they warned of intelligence showing al-Qaida planned an attack in the coming months.

In 2008, she was detained by authorities in Afghanistan. American officials said they found in her possession handwritten notes that discussed the construction of so-called dirty bombs and that listed various locations in the U.S. that could be targeted in a “mass casualty attack.”

Inside an interview room at an Afghan police compound, authorities say, she grabbed the M-4 rifle of a U.S. Army officer and opened fire on members of the U.S. team assigned to interrogate her.

She was convicted in 2010 on charges including attempting to kill U.S. nationals outside the United States. At her sentencing hearing, she gave rambling statements in which she delivered a message of world peace — and also forgave the judge. She expressed frustration at arguments from her own lawyers who said she deserved leniency because she was mentally ill.

“I’m not paranoid,” she said at one point. “I don’t agree with that.”

WHAT WAS THE REACTION?

Pakistani officials immediately decried the punishment, which prompted protests in multiple cities and criticism in the media.

The prime minister at the time, Yousuf Raza Gilani, called her the “daughter of the nation” and vowed to campaign for her release from jail.

In the years since, Pakistani leaders have openly floated the idea of swaps or deals that could result in her release.

Faizan Syed, executive director of the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said the group considers Siddiqui to have been “caught in the war on terror” as well as a political prisoner who was wrongly accused through flawed evidence. He nonetheless strongly condemned the hostage-taking, calling it wrong, heinous and “something that is completely undermining our efforts to get Dr. Aaifa released.”

She has also garnered support from accused militants in the United States. An Ohio man who admitted he plotted to kill U.S. military members after receiving training in Syria also planned to fly to Texas and attack the federal prison where Siddiqui is being held in an attempt to free her. The man, Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud, was sentenced in...

Before You Click On The "Read More" Link,

Please Only Do So If You Are Over 21 Years Old.

If You are Easily Upset, Triggered Or Offended, This Is Not The Place For You.

Please Leave Silently Into The Night......

You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?

It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,

from the beautiful to the repugnant,

from the mysterious to the familiar.

If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,

you could be inspired, you could be appalled.

This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.

You have been warned.

Girls With Guns

Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #181

Gov. Blackface Pardons Perv: Northam Absolves Democrat Jailed for Underage Sex Crimes in Final Act as Governor

Virginia Democratic governor Ralph Northam on Friday pardoned a state legislator who served jail time in an underage sex case, in one of the outgoing governor's final acts before leaving office.

Northam pardoned Democratic state senator Joe Morrissey, 64, who was charged with having a sexual relationship with his 17-year-old, part-time receptionist and pleaded guilty to contributing to the delinquency of a minor in 2014. After serving a three-month jail sentence, Morrissey had a child with the victim and the couple married when she turned 18.

Morrissey, who won reelection to the House of Delegates while campaigning from jail in 2015, told the Washington Free Beacon on Friday that he "absolutely" felt vindicated by Northam's decision to pardon him.

"I was absolutely thrilled that the governor pardoned me. My wife and I are most delighted," said Morrissey when reached by phone. "However, the people who will be most affected by this and who will in the future be the most grateful are our four little children."

Northam, who leaves office on Saturday, is best known for dressing up in either blackface or a Ku Klux Klan hood and declining to answer questions about it or resign. He will be succeeded by Republican governor-elect Glenn Youngkin, a businessman and Virginia father of four.

Morrissey has denied that he knowingly carried out a sexual relationship with his now-wife while she was a minor and claimed explicit text messages from their phones stating otherwise were planted by hackers.

Morrissey has a long history of tangling with the law. As a county prosecutor in the early 1990s, he twice served jail time for punching an opposing defense lawyer and for writing a letter to a judge that was deemed threatening. He later had his law license suspended after he...

Team USA warns athletes to leave phones behind to avoid China spying during Olympics

The U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee is advising American athletes to leave their personal phones behind and instead use temporary “burner” phones to avoid being spied on when they go to Beijing, China next month.

The advice to athletes was reportedly shared in an advisory document in September and then a bulletin in December, the Wall Street Journal first reported on Friday. The bulletin reportedly advised athletes that their “every device, communication, transaction and online activity may be monitored.”

“Your device(s) may also be compromised with malicious software, which could negatively impact future use,” the bulletin added.

The advice to leave their primary personal phones behind and instead use temporary “burner” phones could cause further challenges for athletes during these Olympic Games. Athletes who follow the advice to leave their phones behind may find it harder to stay in contact with their family members, who are not allowed to attend this year’s games. China has banned all overseas spectators from attending the 2022 Winter Olympic games.

Athletes might also find it difficult to access their social media accounts from a burner phone. Many athletes are reliant on their social media accounts to promote themselves. Self-promotion on social media is an important way many modern athletes are able to get and maintain endorsements.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. isn’t the only country that has advised added precautions against cyber-surveillance and malicious...