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After NATO’s Romanian Coup, Where Next?

By Kit Klarenberg | Global Delinquents | December 29, 2024

On December 6th, Romania’s constitutional court made an extraordinary decision to inexplicably overturn first round results of the country’s November 24th presidential election. Conveniently, the ruling was made mere days before a runoff that, according to polls, would’ve seen upstart outsider Calin Georgescu win via landslide. In the process, citizens of all NATO member states were provided with a particularly pitiless, real-time crash course on what could now happen in their own countries, should the ‘wrong’ candidates be elected fair and square.

Georgescu’s stunning victory in the first round caught Romania’s political elite and their Western sponsors off guard, while leaving him the most popular political figure in the country. Campaigning on a traditionalist, nationalist platform, he extolled views some might consider unsavoury, but also advocated nationalisation, and state investment in local industry. Perhaps predictably, the Western media has universally smeared him as “far-right”, “pro-Putin” and a “conspiracy theorist”, among other now-familiar sobriquets commonly levelled at political dissidents.

Georgescu’s greatest crime is to determinedly oppose continued Romanian involvement in and backing for the Ukraine proxy war. As Kiev’s Black Sea-facing neighbour, Bucharest has offered significant financial, material and political succour since February 2022, all along running the risk of getting caught in the crossfire. But in interviews with Western news outlets, Georgescu boldly proclaimed any and all “military or political support” would be reduced to “zero” under his watch:

“I have to take care of my people. I don’t want to involve my people… Everything stops. I have to take care just about my people. We have a lot of problems ourselves.”

No official reason has been given for Romania’s constitutional court voiding November’s vote, despite days earlier signing off on the results. Nonetheless, in the intervening time, Bucharest’s security apparatus released declassified reports intimating – without making direct accusations or providing any evidence whatsoever – Georgescu’s victory may have resulted from a wide-ranging, Moscow-sponsored influence campaign, delivered via TikTok. Details provided instead pointed to a rather mundane – albeit successful – social media marketing effort.

The plot further thickened in late December, when it was revealed the TikTok campaign that purportedly boosted Georgescu was in fact financed by Romania’s National Liberal party. This backing helped propel the hitherto obscure candidate to national prominence, the objective potentially being to harm the National Liberal party’s arch nemesis Social Democrats. No evidence of Muscovite funding, let alone support, for Georgescu has ever emerged. Nonetheless, despite these disclosures, the narrative of Russian destabilisation catapulting him into power has since been invincibly minted.

NATO’s grand and ever-expanding military base in Romania

Bucharest’s sprawling territory is home to multiple US missile facilities, and a giant NATO military base, scheduled to soon be greatly expanded, explicitly in service of decisively changing the region’s “balance of power” in the West’s favour. Meanwhile, Romanian presidents wield significant clout in domestic and international affairs. They dictate foreign policy, serve as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and appoint prime ministers. All of which points to a far more likely rationale for the presidential election’s abrogation than “Russian meddling”.

‘Without Hope’

On December 10th, the BBC published a striking report on how Romanians were “stunned by the eleventh-hour cancellation of their presidential election.” The British state broadcaster was at pains throughout to justify the vote’s unprecedented, despotic annulment as proper, reasonably motivated by a “massive” and “aggressive” malign meddling campaign on TikTok – whether of Russian origin or not – improperly skewing the result. However, the BBC evidently had little choice but to admit Georgescu was enormously, and organically, popular.

For example, NATO veteran Mircea Geoana, Bucharest’s former foreign affairs minister who ran for president in November and finished sixth, was quoted as saying “Romania dodged a bullet” and “came very close” to an all-out coup. “If Moscow can do this in Romania, which is profoundly anti-Russian, it means they can do it anywhere,” he ominously cautioned. Still, Geoana conceded there was “a whole cocktail of grievances in our society,” and it would be “hugely mistaken to believe” Georgescu’s success “was just because of Russia.”

The BBC acknowledged immense “fatigue” with Romania’s doggedly pro-Western political establishment widely abounds among the local population, who harbour an ever-growing number of completely legitimate grievances, entirely unaddressed in the mainstream. By contrast, the British state broadcaster recorded, Georgescu not only spoke openly and passionately about these manifold problems, but offered tangible solutions for tackling them. And a great many average citizens “liked what he said.” Several Georgescu supporters were duly quoted in the article, issuing effusive praise. One evangelised:

“He’s like a preacher, with a Bible in his hand, and I thought he spoke only the truth… He talks about rights and dignity. Romanians go to other countries for work, but we have so many resources here. Wood, grain – and our soil is very rich. Why should we be vagrants in Italy?”

The BBC further noted Georgescu’s “pledge to Make Romania Great Again helped him perform particularly strongly among the vast Romanian diaspora.” Given Bucharest’s mass depopulation in recent years, significantly assisted by EU membership, this is hardly surprising. “Many who left because life was so tough are now getting by abroad rather than prospering,” the British state broadcaster observed. Meanwhile, in Bucharest, costs of basic goods are “climbing at the fastest rate in Europe.” An expat supporter of Georgescu forcefully declared:

“He’s corrupt? He’s with Putin? No, he’s not. He’s with the people. With Romania. Georgescu is a patriot. He wants peace, not war, and we want that too. Someone wants something good for his country and they won’t allow him to do that… Maybe he’ll be in prison in months and for what? For nothing… We feel lost right now, without hope.”

‘Allied Solidarity’

To date, no concrete evidence directly implicating NATO powers in the invalidation of Romania’s presidential election has emerged. We do not – and may never – know what might have been said behind closed doors to members of Bucharest’s Western-bought political, judicial, security and military establishment, and by whom. But there is a clear precedent for such backroom conniving. In the final months of 1989, Communism across the Warsaw Pact, the Cold War-era constellation of Central and Eastern European Soviet satellite states.

The sole exception was Romania, then led by Nicolae Ceausescu. On December 4th that year, he privately met with then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, to discuss the fall of longstanding Communist governments in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary and Poland. Gorbachev, to all intents and purposes a Western puppet, assured Ceausescu his position was secure, he would “survive”, and they would meet again in mere weeks. That summit never came to pass though, as on December 25th, Ceausescu was executed by military firing squad.

The 1989 Romanian revolution

This followed violent mass protests across Romania. Years later, it was revealed high-ranking US officials secretly met with Gorbachev that month, imploring him to deploy the Red Army to oust Ceausescu. These entreaties were apparently rebuffed. Yet, subsequent research indicates that throughout December 1989, a profusion of KGB operatives were conducting uncertain, covert missions across the country, in coordination with Ion Iliescu, who succeeded Ceausescu. Suspicions he personally ordered the very security service crackdowns that ignited the insurrectionary anti-Ceausescu demonstrations endure to this day.

Whatever the truth of the matter, Romania’s outsized geopolitical importance to the Empire then and now couldn’t be clearer. In the weeks since Georgescu’s victory was vetoed, it has been announced that further scores of foreign NATO troops will be dispatched to Bucharest, in explicit response to “the evolution of the security situation in the Black Sea region.” Meanwhile, Romanian officials talk a big game on “allied solidarity”, and look forward to “extensive joint training exercises” over the year ahead.

Furthermore, on December 12th, the Romanian government abruptly greenlit long-mooted, highly controversial legislation providing for the country’s military and all its “weapons, military devices and ammunition” to come under total foreign control and direction at any time, without a formal state declaration of emergency, siege, or war. In other words, NATO would have unilateral power to commandeer Bucharest’s armed forces, at its behest. A useful capability indeed, as the nearby Ukraine proxy war careens towards total collapse, and overt foreign involvement is openly mulled.

The aforementioned BBC article reported that local “suspicion” about whether unseen foreign forces may have swayed “the judges’ ruling to cancel the vote” is such, “even those who feared a president Georgescu – and believe Russia was backing him – now worry about the precedent just set for Romanian democracy.” We are left to ponder where next an illiberal coup of the kind that just went down in Bucharest might be replicated, as the Empire’s surging contempt for democracy and public will becomes writ ever-larger.

Nonetheless, one might draw some solace from the fact that even those who endorsed Romania’s autocratic putsch are well-aware it was a blunt-force, short-term solution to a panoply of deeply complex, likely intractable socioeconomic and political problems. Former NATO high-ranker Mircea Geoana told the British state broadcaster that nullification of Georgescu’s victory had delivered at best transitory reprieve to Western powers, and their chosen puppets in Romania. Moreover, he feared the move could spectacularly boomerang, should elites continue to ignore citizens’ concerns:

“We bought ourselves some time. But there is real fury here. And if we don’t do something, we might have a repeat.”

December 29, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

The Vindication of William Bay

Health Advisory & Recovery Team | December 27, 2024

Australia was one of the most authoritarian countries in the world from 2020 onward. This week, however, we can celebrate a victory that reflects what Australians used to epitomize – no-nonsense courage and jovial determination.

The story begins in 2018, when Dr. William Bay foresaw the dangers of the Medical Board seeking to regulate doctors’ speech.

Dr. Bay stood firm against COVID restrictions, vaccine mandates, and the limiting of treatment options. But it was in 2022 that he caused quite the stir. At an Australian Medical Association (AMA) Conference he interrupted a lecture, calling out the attending doctors for their silence on vaccine harms. It was a scene to remember: doctors, masked and seated at round white tables, began standing up one by one, walking out in quiet protest. Dr. Bay was then escorted out by security. When asked how he managed to get in, his response was simply: “I’m a doctor!” The footage of his exit remains iconic and worth watching.

As seems to be the theme with dissenters, Dr. Bay was reported anonymously to the regulator. The complaint had nothing to do with his conduct as a doctor – in fact, he had an unblemished professional record. Yet, the Medical Board of Australia, under the supervision of the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA), suspended him.

Dr. Bay’s case highlights systemic failures within AHPRA and the Medical Board, particularly around free speech, informed consent, and medical autonomy. Under AHPRA’s 2021 position statement, health practitioners were pressured to align strictly with public health messaging, risking regulatory action if they shared views—on or off social media—that contradicted official vaccine campaigns. This created a chilling effect, stifling doctors’ professional independence and undermining their ability to provide balanced information, a cornerstone of free and informed consent for patients. Compounding this issue, AHPRA strongly encouraged — some would say coerced — doctors themselves to be vaccinated, eroding their personal autonomy to make medical decisions. In their overreach, AHPRA not only failed to respect informed consent but also demonstrated a lack of understanding of their own regulations, which are designed to safeguard patient choice and professional integrity. Dr. Bay’s courageous stand not only challenged these failures but reaffirmed the importance of free speech, informed consent, and ethical medical practice in patient care.

In June 2023, he lost his case in the High Court and was ordered to pay costs to AHPRA. Despite these setbacks, Dr. Bay – representing himself throughout – refused to give up.

His story then took a remarkable turn. As a Christian, Dr. Bay recounts a pivotal moment when he felt God instruct him to draft an amended application focusing on procedural fairness and bias and keep it ready, even though it seemed unnecessary at the time. On the final day of the appeal, the judge remarked that Bay had made excellent points on procedural issues but noted they weren’t in his original application. When Dr. Bay asked if he could submit an amendment, the judge agreed – on the condition that it be completed over the lunch break. No problem there – Bay delivered.

The case revealed a significant breach of fairness. Dr. Anne Tonkin, then Chair of the Medical Board of Australia, was present at the Australian Medical Association (AMA) National Conference where Dr. William Bay interrupted proceedings to voice his criticisms. During this event, Dr. Tonkin discussed the possibility of filing a complaint with Associate Professor Julian Rait, the AMA Chair at the time. Subsequently, Associate Professor Rait submitted a complaint regarding Dr. Bay’s conduct. Dr. Tonkin later chaired the Medical Board meeting that decided to suspend Dr. Bay’s medical registration.

On December 13, 2024, the Brisbane Supreme Court overturned the suspension, backdating the decision to when it originally occurred. Justice Thomas Bradley ruled that AHPRA and the Medical Board acted with bias and failed to afford Dr. Bay procedural fairness. The judge went further, condemning the regulators for their “animus” and “combative approach” toward Dr. Bay, noting their inability to prove that he had breached any laws or guidelines.

As a result, Dr. Bay’s suspension was lifted, and he was reinstated with costs awarded against AHPRA and the Medical Board. Notably, Bay’s costs were minimal – he had represented himself.

Now free to speak, he is continuing to voice his concerns in the style of a true Aussie lad, “I think the vaccines are shit, mate. They’re absolute shit.”

Dr. Bay’s triumph is not just personal; it sets a powerful precedent for doctors across Australia, and, we can hope, beyond. This ruling safeguards their right to speak freely, prioritize patient welfare, and challenge overreaching authorities without fear of retribution.

In the spirit of the “Aussie lad,” Dr. William Bay has shown what courage, conviction, and persistence can achieve – a victory for truth, justice, and freedom.

December 28, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

New York Governor Hochul Signs Controversial Online Safety Bill, Renewing Free Speech Concerns

By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | December 28, 2024

A controversial legislative package signed by New York Governor Kathy Hochul is likely to once again ignite concerns over free speech; as critics argue – just like the last time she tried to enact such legislation – it promotes censorship under the guise of online safety. Among the measures is S895B/A6789B, a bill mandating social media companies disclose their terms of service regarding so-called “hate speech” and submit detailed reports to the state attorney general.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

In a press release, Hochul’s office borrowed a turn from the pro-censorship UK government and touted the legislation as a step toward “Online Safety,” but many see it as a tool for stifling expression. The term “hate speech,” often deployed in ambiguous and subjective ways, has frequently been used to suppress dissenting opinions. This bill empowers both government entities and social media giants to arbitrarily regulate speech.

Assemblymember Grace Lee (D-District 65), a vocal proponent of the legislation, justified the measures by citing the spread of information during the COVID-19 pandemic. She argued that “hate and disinformation” were spreading like “wildfire,” necessitating stricter controls.

Lee further criticized Big Tech for failing to adequately police content, stating, “These companies have a responsibility to protect users from this hate, but have failed to do so.”

Similarly, NY State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal (D-District 47) framed his support for the bill in language emphasizing identity-based violence and discrimination. Hoylman-Sigal asserted that social media companies must act to prevent the spread of “disinformation and hate-fueled violence.”

He even pointed to the events of January 6, 2021, as evidence of the alleged dangers posed by unmoderated online speech, suggesting these platforms bear responsibility for addressing such issues.

Opponents of the legislation view these arguments as a pretext for imposing sweeping censorship measures. They argue that handing more control over speech to government officials and powerful corporations undermines fundamental freedoms.

Critics of this latest measure draw parallels to an earlier law championed by Hochul that was blocked by a federal court. The law, enacted last summer, sought to regulate “hateful conduct” online by requiring social media platforms to implement mechanisms for reporting content deemed “hateful.”

The broad definition of “hateful conduct,” which included content that could “vilify, humiliate, or incite violence” based on various identity categories, raised alarm among free speech advocates.

The legislation faced a legal challenge from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), free speech platform Rumble, and First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh. Judge Andrew L. Carter, Jr. of the Southern District of New York struck down the law, citing its chilling effect on constitutionally protected speech.

“The First Amendment protects from state regulation speech that may be deemed ‘hateful,’ and generally disfavors regulation of speech based on its content unless it is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest,” the court ruled. It further emphasized that the law compelled social media networks to adopt speech policies aligned with the state’s definitions, violating their editorial discretion and the First Amendment.

December 28, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Telegram blocking Russian media in EU

RT | December 28, 2024

The Telegram channels of multiple major Russian news outlets were rendered inaccessible across the EU on Sunday. The affected channels now display a plaque stating that access to them has been restricted over alleged “violation of local laws,” with all the content unavailable.

According to media reports, the affected channels include such Russian majors as RIA Novosti, Izvestia, Rossiya 1, Channel One, NTV and Rossiyskaya Gazeta. While it was not immediately clear whether the bans are EU-wide, the restrictions have been reportedly rolled out in Poland, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy and the Czech Republic.

The EU has taken multiple hostile steps against Russian media amid the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev – and even before it. Some of the media affected in the apparent Telegram ban, namely Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Izvestia and RIA Novosti, were slapped with a broadcasting ban in the bloc in May. At the time, the EU Council claimed the outlets were under the “permanent direct or indirect control” of the Russian leadership, and played an “essential and instrumental” role in the hostilities.

No official statements have so far been made on the matter, either by Telegram, the EU as a whole or by individual members of the bloc.

December 28, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How Speaking Out Against Harmful COVID Policies Can Get You Banned by the NHS

The story of a bizarre punishment

By MJ Sutherland | Health Advisory & Recovery Team | December 27, 2024

It’s been an incredible journey.

At the end of July 2021, I walked out of a well-paid job with Dumfries & Galloway Council. I resigned in protest—against fraudulent COVID testing, child maltreatment through misuse of tests and enforcement of mask mandates, and the complete disregard for their lack of authority to do any of it. What they were doing to Other People’s Children in schools was indefensible, and I wasn’t going to stay silent. Later I forced them to admit, via the Scottish Information Commissioner, that they had no legal authority for any of it. I’d long since left the council by this time.

At first, the threats were thinly veiled: hints that speaking out could jeopardise my job, suggestions that I should “be careful” what I said, because “we don’t want to lose you…” But when I refused to back down, their tactics became more direct. I was accused of spreading misinformation—despite providing mountains of evidence—and warned that my activism could “damage my reputation.” It was clear they wanted me to stop asking questions. I didn’t, and after being warned about my “behaviour” once too often, I walked out – but not before sending a damning email to hundreds, if not thousands, of council workers, accusing the council’s top brass of fraud, misfeasance and child abuse.

By October 2021, I was working with Phil Hyland of PJH Law, and together we sent the council a formal letter warning them of the crimes they’d be complicit in if they continued. It still feels surreal that I got to be part of that. I’d already sent similar notices and detailed evidence to the local health board, but both the council and NHS ignored everything I submitted.

Then, in December 2021, things escalated when an NHS “Consultant in Public Health” closed a local primary school, forcing children into self-isolation until they could produce a negative PCR test before they could return. Knowing the truth about these tests—their inaccuracies, their misuse—I couldn’t stay quiet. This wasn’t just bad policy; it was child abuse. We issued a Notice to Cease and Desist to Dr Regina McDevitt. We attached the PJH Law letter we’d sent to the council, along with the evidence pack detailing the harm these policies were causing.

This time, there was a reaction. But instead of addressing the harm to children or engaging with the evidence, NHS Dumfries & Galloway’s CEO, Jeff Ace, decided instead to ban me from all NHS premises for six months.

This was a bizarre move, especially since I hadn’t set foot in an NHS building for years. I was still entitled to go for medical appointments (although I had none), but presumably not allowed to visit patients, although I didn’t know anyone in hospital at the time, so no difference there. I was still entitled to submit FOI requests as I had been doing, but presumably not allowed to protest by waving placards outside NHS buildings, which I wasn’t doing anyway. But, as pointless and absurd as it may be, banned I was.

I can only suspect Jeff’s motive was to to feel better about himself, like he’d actually achieved something, but here’s the irony: while they were busy “punishing” me, they quietly dropped the requirement for children to produce negative PCR tests before returning to school. So, in the end, something got through. But the message was clear: dissent would not be tolerated.

Since then, I’ve kept busy. I’ve been prodding, poking, and shining a light on the fraud and abuse that fuelled the covid tyranny. This wasn’t just about masks or tests; it was about the false claims of authority that let these institutions get away with it all.

Last year, I had the honour of being interviewed by Dr Ahmad Malik about my activism. We discussed the council’s capitulation on masks, the informed consent documents I created, and how this fight has unfolded. And now, HART have invited me to share my story as someone who chose the difficult path by communicating the truth about covid policies and their effects.

Looking back, I’m pleased to say that the threats didn’t stop me. Neither did losing my career. And while I’ve chosen that difficult path, I wouldn’t change a thing.

Like I said, it’s been an incredible journey.

MJ Sutherland

Founder of Declaration of Dumfries

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December 27, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Global Engagement Center officially shuts down, but censorship efforts likely to persist through State Department offices

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | December 27, 2024

“The GEC is dead – long live the GEC!” That would be one way to summarize the situation around the US State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) that has formally shut down.

But judging by previous announcements, the move could prove to be by and large symbolic, as there are plans to continue the work by funding it, and assigning the 120 GEC staff to other offices and bureaus.

And the work has included surveilling Americans and flagging their social media posts for censorship in the US, critics have said.

Many Republican lawmakers have been among those critics over the previous years, and so has Elon Musk, who in 2023 did not shy away from branding GEC as “a threat to our democracy” – as the worst among the government entities that engaged in censorship and media manipulation.

Musk, who is now set to become a member of President Trump’s administration, and others raised the alarm when it came to light that the recent spending bill proposal included continued bankrolling of the GEC.

The GEC launched in 2016 and has been repeatedly accused and investigated as essentially an example of a “policy gun” supposedly designed to tackle foreign disinformation challenges, that the outgoing administration turned on its own citizens, threatening their right to free speech online.

The end of GEC as such came with the spending bill passed last week in Congress removing the approximately $61 million in funding that the agency received every year.

When it comes to “the next steps” regarding staff and unfinished GEC projects, the State Department said it was “consulting” with Congress on these issues.

The State Department now on its way out has insisted that the GEC worked to counter Russian, Chinese, etc., disinformation.

But one of the House investigations that looked into the activities of the agency, conducted by the Committee on Small Business, looked into the ways the government funded companies who then damaged competitiveness of small businesses online because of their lawful speech.

The GEC also shows up in an interim report by the House Judiciary Committee’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government as coordinating with third parties to censor Americans ahead of the 2020 election.

December 27, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

South Korea votes to impeach acting president

RT | December 27, 2024

South Korea’s Parliament has voted to impeach acting head of state Han Duck-soo over his refusal to appoint justices to the Constitutional Court, local media reported on Friday. The appointments are necessary to finalize the impeachment of Han’s predecessor, President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was stripped of his powers earlier this month.

The motion to impeach Han, filed by the opposition Democratic Party, was passed with 192 votes in favor in the 300-member parliament, called the National Assembly, speaker Woo Won-shik announced in a televised statement.

The National Assembly initially voted to impeach Yoon on December 14 over his brief imposition of martial law in the country. On December 3, he had declared emergency martial law on the grounds that the opposition – which he accused of being sympathetic towards North Korea – had allegedly been preparing a “rebellion.”

The impeachment decision by the National Assembly meant that Yoon was automatically suspended from office. However, in order to complete the procedure, it must be upheld by the Constitutional Court. The nine-member bench is currently short of three judges, and, while it can technically vote with only six members, a single dissenting vote would reinstate Yoon to office under South Korean law.

As interim head of state, Han was expected to appoint the justices to fill the vacancies following requests from the opposition party, which is against Yoon’s reinstatement. On Thursday, the National Assembly passed the appointment consent bill for three candidates, two of which were nominated by the opposition and one by the ruling conservative People Power Party. However, at an emergency press-conference immediately after, Han said he could not appoint the justices right away as the PPP did not support the nominees, and the appointment could harm the constitutional order.

“The consistent principle embedded in our Constitution and laws is to refrain from exercising significant exclusive presidential powers, including the appointment of constitutional institutions,” he argued in his address, adding that “a consensus between the ruling and opposition parties in the National Assembly, representing the people, must first be reached.” In response to this, the opposition proposed impeaching Han as well.

“It has become clear that Prime Minister and acting President Han Duck-soo has neither the qualifications nor the will to protect the Constitution,” Park Chan-dae, the Democratic Party’s floor leader, said in a statement announcing the motion.

Friday’s vote marked the first time in South Korea’s modern history that an impeachment motion has been filed against an acting president. The country’s finance minister, Choi Sang-mok, is now expected to take over as acting president.

December 27, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception | | Leave a comment

Syrians take to streets nationwide against shrine desecration; HTS militants fire on protesters

Press TV – December 26, 2024

Protests have erupted across Syria over militants’ desecration of an Alawite shrine in Aleppo, with armed groups belonging to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) opening fire on protesters.

Tens of thousands took to the streets in Latakia, Tartus, Homs, Hama, and Qardaha on Wednesday, resulting in violent confrontations.

Protesters came out after video was circulated on social networks showing a fire inside the shrine of Sheikh Abu Abdullah al-Hussein al-Khasibi in Aleppo, with armed men walking inside and killing the guards of the shrine, an incident that has drawn strong condemnation from the Alawite minority.

According to reports from local sources, the protests were spread after armed individuals opened fire on protesters in Homs, resulting in the death of one person and injury of five others.

Video footage circulating on social media captured the moment when the armed groups targeted peaceful demonstrators expressing their outrage over the attack on the historical Alawite figure’s shrine.

The violence continued in the coastal city of Tartus, where deadly clashes broke out between members of the HTS administration’s “interior ministry” and protesters.

In addition to the protests against the attack on the shrine, demonstrators in the city of Masyaf, located in the northwestern countryside of Hama, condemned the assassination of three Alawite judges, which occurred just a day before.

Some residents said the demonstrations were linked to pressure and violence in recent days aimed at members of the Alawite minority.

According to Syrian media outlets, a curfew was imposed from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m. on Thursday in Homs while authorities in Jableh and two other cities also announced a nighttime curfew.

The new Syrian “Interior Ministry” claimed on its Telegram account that video footage of the shrine’s destruction was outdated and related to earlier conflicts during the takeover of Aleppo in late November.

However, this assertion has not quelled the public anger, as thousands gathered in protests, demanding justice to be done for the perpetrators of the attacks on their religious heritage.

Alawites are increasingly concerned about potential reprisals against their community, stemming from their status as a minority religious group and their historical ties to the al-Assad family, including ousted President Bashar al-Assad.

Moreover, on Tuesday, hundreds of demonstrators protested in Christian areas of Damascus against the burning of a Christmas tree near Syria’s Hama. The HTS promised to restore it promptly.

The country’s new leaders have repeatedly pledged to hold accountable those responsible for the desecration of religious sites, claiming that they will respect the beliefs and rights of all sects and religions in Syria.

The situation remains very fluid and fragile, with potential risk for further clashes as sectarian sentiments continue to boil over amid the ongoing political instability and pressures on minority groups.

December 26, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

UN General Assembly Adopts Controversial Cybercrime Treaty Amid Criticism Over Censorship and Surveillance Risks

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | December 26, 2024

As we expected, even though opponents have been warning that the United Nations Convention Against Cybercrime needed to have a narrower scope, strong human rights safeguard and be more clearly defined in order to avoid abuse – the UN General Assembly has just adopted the documents, after five years of wrangling between various stakeholders.

It is now up to UN-member states to first sign, and then ratify the treaty that will come into force three months after the 40th country does that.

The UN bureaucracy is pleased with the development, hailing the convention as a “landmark” and “historic” global treaty that will improve cross-border cooperation against cybercrime and digital threats.

But critics have been saying that speech and human rights might fall victim to the treaty since various UN members treat human rights and privacy in vastly different ways – while the treaty now in a way “standardizes” law enforcement agencies’ investigative powers across borders.

Considerable emphasis has been put by some on how “authoritarian” countries might abuse this new tool meant to tackle online crime – but in reality, this concern applies to any country that ends up ratifying the treaty.

Another point of criticism has been that UN members individually already have laws that address the same issues, rendering the convention superfluous – unless it is to extend some of those authoritarian powers to the countries that don’t formally have them, and can’t outright pass them at home for political reasons.

Since the UN General Assembly adopted the resolution without a vote – after the text was previously agreed on by negotiators – it is not immediately clear how many countries might sign it next year, and ratify what would then become a legally binding document.

In the meanwhile, a spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres referred to the treaty as “a demonstration of multilateralism.”

Where opponents see potential for undemocratic law enforcement practices spilling over sovereign borders, UN representatives speak about “an unprecedented platform for cooperation” that will allow agencies to exchange evidence, create a safe cyberspace, and protect victims of crimes such as child sexual abuse, scams and money laundering.

And they claim all this will be achieved “while safeguarding human rights online.”

December 26, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Begging for the Wonder Drug

Five years later, we resolve never to forget how US hospitals deprived critically ill patients of ivermectin and other commonly used drugs that could have saved them.

Satoshi Ōmura, 2015 Nobel Laureate for his discovery of the ”wonder drug” Ivermectin, stands next to the River Blindness sculpture. His discovery cured this great scourge of the tropical world.
By John Leake | Courageous Discourse | December 13, 2024

As I was researching our book, The Courage to Face COVID-19: Preventing Hospitalization and Death While Battling the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex, I was especially disturbed by countless stories of hospitals in various states who steadfastly refused to treat critically ill COVID-19 patients with ivermectin and other drugs (commonly used for other illnesses) that could have saved their lives.

I believe this episode constitutes the darkest chapter in the history of the U.S. hospital system. Strangely enough, the only serious legacy newspaper journalist in the entire country who covered it was Michael Capuzzo—formerly a reporter with the Miami Herald and the Philadelphia Inquirer, where he received four Pulitzer Prize nominations. Apart from Michael’s reporting . . . crickets.

Out of my conviction that we should never forget what U.S. hospitals did to patients who were consigned to die on ventilators instead of receiving FDA-approved, off-label drugs such as ivermectin, methylprednisolone, and even high dose aspirin, I am publishing our chapter on the extraordinary villains who committed this atrocity, and the good guys—including two great attorneys and humanitarians named Ralph Lorigo and Beth Parlato—who fought back. Please share this story with your friends and family and exhort them never to forget.

CHAPTER 28: Begging for the Wonder Drug

As Michael Capuzzo told the story in his long magazine piece “The Drug that Cracked Covid,” Judy Smentkiewicz was an eighty-year-old resident of Buffalo, New York. After working thirty-five years as an office manager for Metropolitan Life and raising two children, she had retired to her small house in the suburbs. A week after Senator Johnson’s second Senate hearing, she began preparing for Christmas, and looked forward to her two children, Michael and Michelle, visiting her for a few days. However, right after Michael and his wife arrived from Florida, she began to feel unwell. On December 22 she tested positive for Covid. Her kids were devastated and cancelled their Christmas celebration as Judy went into quarantine. A week later, she became short of breath and was rushed to the Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital. On New Year’s Eve she was admitted to the ICU.

It was a terrible moment in which Judy and her children realized they might never see each other again. In the days that followed, the doctors and nurses with whom Michael spoke didn’t offer much hope. They said there were no medications for treating COVID-19 approved by federal health agencies apart from remdesivir. This was administered to Judy, but it seemed to have no beneficial effect. On New Year’s Eve, as her condition deteriorated, her two children and six of their friends gathered on the street below her hospital window and prayed for her.

Shortly after New Year’s Day, Michael received from his mother-in-law a video of Dr. Pierre Kory being interviewed by a reporter for Fox 10 News Now, KSAZ-TV in Phoenix, Arizona. That morning, Dr. Kory had given his Senate testimony on ivermectin. Michael watched it and was moved by Dr. Kory’s passionate intensity and eloquence. Immediately he called the hospital and told Judy’s attending physician that he wanted her to receive ivermectin. The doctor refused on the grounds that it wasn’t approved for COVID-19, but Michael refused to take no for an answer, and finally a hospital administrator approved one, 15-milligram dose. Less than twenty-four hours later, Judy was taken off the ventilator, and the next day she sat upright in a chair for a Zoom call with her son. She still wasn’t out of the woods, and when her heart started racing, she was moved to a cardiac unit, and the hospital refused to give her a second dose of ivermectin. Michael insisted but the hospital refused to budge.

And so, he contacted his friend and attorney Ralph Lorigo, and explained the situation. At the time, Lorigo knew nothing about ivermectin, so he too watched the interview with Dr. Kory, and then sued the hospital. New York State Supreme Court Judge Henry Nowak heard the case and ordered the hospital to commence treating Judy with four more doses of ivermectin, per her family doctor’s prescription.

The hospital refused to obey the judge’s order, which resulted in additional legal wrangling, including another hearing. Finally, the hospital’s lawyer agreed to allow Judy’s family doctor to administer the drug. He was under the impression it was on hand in the hospital’s pharmacy, but when he arrived to carry out his charge, he was told that it would have to be couriered from another facility. This caused another delay. Finally, at 11:00 pm that night, the second dose was administered, and she started to improve. Ten days later she walked out of the hospital.

As word spread about Judy’s happy outcome, Ralph Lorigo was contacted by countless others in the same situation, and soon his law firm had a new area of practice—trying to force hospitals to administer an FDA-approved, Nobel Prize winning, WHO “Essential Medication” to dying COVID-19 patients to whom nothing else was offered.

Mr. Lorigo was well-suited for the task. The energetic, punctilious attorney and Erie County Conservative party chairman has a formidable presence, with strong Italian good looks and a penchant for wearing beautifully tailored suit and power ties. Though he specialized in real estate law, he represented his clients seeking ivermectin with great care. A devoted family man with three children and multiple grandchildren, he empathized with the families who sought his help.

To be sure, it wasn’t an easy job, because the hospitals fought him tooth and nail, bringing multiple attorneys and expert witnesses to hearings. After a few more successes in which he prevailed and the patients recovered after receiving ivermectin, he received more queries than his staff could handle, so he contacted his friend, Beth Parlato, and asked her if she would be interested in taking some of the cases.

The 55-year-old attorney and mother of three had served as a judge in a New York State criminal court. Over the course of her career, she’d seen much of the good, the bad, and the ugly, but none of it had prepared her for the grueling path ahead. What she was about to witness would challenge all of her assumptions about the American healthcare and legal systems, and ultimately about human nature itself.

Most of her clients were referrals from the FLCCC, founded by Drs. Marik and Kory. The typical call would come into her office from a desperate husband or wife, daughter or son. Their stories were always the same. A much-loved family member had been languishing in hospital and was now headed for the ventilator and probable death. And though the doctors and nurses stated that the prognosis was poor, the hospital refused to administer ivermectin.

To patients and their families, the situation was incomprehensible. Many of Beth’s clients posed a variation of the question: “Mom [or dad] is declining and is probably going to die, so what’s the harm in her trying ivermectin?” Beth was at a loss for an answer. The hospital’s policy made no sense, neither as a matter of fact nor law. Many families wondered why “right to try” laws didn’t apply. Hospital attorneys claimed the “right to try” was only for experimental medications that were not yet FDA-approved. Ivermectin was FDA-approved, just not for the treatment of COVID-19.

Patients and their families found this argument perversely legalistic, but many judges—and all judges elected as Democrats—found it persuasive. Beth argued it was a legal, common, and longstanding medical practice to prescribe FDA-approved drugs off-label. Hospital attorneys retorted that the NIH guidelines for the treatment of COVID-19 did not recommend the off-label administration of ivermectin, and because the NIH was the final scientific arbiter of medical matters in the United States, the hospitals were required to follow its guidelines.

The trouble with the one-size-fits-all NIH guidelines for hospitalized COVID-19 patients was that they didn’t work. Almost a year into the pandemic, the United States had the highest COVID-19 death rate of the world’s top ten wealthiest nations and was in the top twenty nations with the highest death rates in the world. Approximately 80% of hospitalized patients who went on mechanical ventilation died. Also significant was the fact that that on January 14, 2021—in response to Senator Johnson’s letter requesting that the NIH review Dr. Kory’s presentation of evidence—the NIH dropped its recommendation against using ivermectin and adopted a neutral stance. Though far from satisfying for Dr. Kory and his colleagues, the NIH neutral stance at least gave doctors greater leeway to exercise their clinical judgement about the drug.

To make matters even more confusing, healthcare professionals were provided with broad legal immunity by the federal PREP Act (Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness) of 2005. This authorized the Secretary of Health and Human Services to deploy a wide array of “Emergency Countermeasures” in the event of an infectious disease outbreak. When invoked by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the PREP Act provides immunity for the “manufacture, testing, development, distribution, administration, and use of covered countermeasures.” On February 4, 2020, HHS Secretary Alex Azar declared COVID-19 an emergency and invoked the PREP Act.

The CARES Act of March 27, 2020, also provided immunity for healthcare workers treating COVID-19 patients. Additional immunity was granted by governors’ executive orders in all fifty states. The governor of New York State, in which Beth was practicing, provided the following immunity:

Conduct Covered: Civil liability for injury or death alleged to have been sustained directly as a result of an act or omission by person(s) covered.

Person(s) Covered: Physicians, physician assistants; specialist assistants; nurse practitioners; licensed registered professional nurses; licensed practical nurses.

Conduct Not Covered: Gross negligence.

Many observers who were documenting U.S. healthcare policy with respect to remdesivir wondered if all this liability protection could explain why the new, experimental drug was the hospital standard of care despite numerous red flags raised about its safety. The contrast of this policy with the strict policy against administering ivermectin was stunning.

Additionally, all the patients that Beth represented, and their families, stated in writing that they would indemnify the hospitals of liability for any adverse effects apparently caused by ivermectin, and that their primary care physicians would come to the hospital to administer it. Despite these multiple provisions of immunity, hospitals were still dead set against giving ivermectin to dying patients.

The hearings were brutal affairs in which hospital attorneys and expert witnesses portrayed Beth’s expert witness (on the safety and efficacy of ivermectin) as a delusional quack. Their most common line of attack was that Beth’s witness was a lone, eccentric voice in challenging the overwhelming scientific consensus that informed NIH guidelines. This rhetorical strategy ignored that many of mankind’s greatest scientific insights were the work of individuals who challenged the orthodoxy of their day. The growing body of evidence, including RCTs, cited by Beth’s witness was dismissed by hospital experts with the assertion that the evidence was “low quality.” Thus, the judge was presented with opposing expert witness claims about the evidence, only with the hospital’s witness also claiming he had “scientific consensus” and therefore the NIH on his side.

Beth tried to argue that the patient retained sufficient bodily autonomy to decide if he or she wished to take an FDA-approved drug off-label. The hospitals’ attorneys retorted that hospital patients had never had the right to decide their treatment, and that granting it with ivermectin would set a terrible precedent, opening a Pandora’s Box of future patients demanding treatments after hearing anecdotes about their efficacy. Beth regarded this argument as another legalistic dodge. Her clients weren’t presuming to practice medicine—they were dying men and women, desperately begging for the right to try an FDA-approved drug as a last and only hope when nothing else apart from remdesivir was being offered.

The hospitals claimed total sovereignty over the patient—a godlike power over all decisions affecting his life and death, with the patient afforded no say. For most gravely ill patients, the decision of this godlike power resulted in death. Thus, to sick patients and their families, the Lords of Healthcare were neither competent nor compassionate.

From: The Courage to Face COVID-19: Preventing Hospitalization and Death While Battling the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex, by John Leake and Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH, Foreword by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Skyhorse, 2022.

POSTSCRIPT: As Dr. Pierre Kory noted in his book The War on Ivermectin, of the 80 lawsuits filed by lawyer Ralph Lorigo, in 40 the judge sided with the family, and in 40 with the hospital. Of those, in the 40 where patients received ivermectin, 38 survived, whereas of the 40 who did not, only 2 survived.

December 26, 2024 Posted by | Book Review, Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

US shuts down ‘disinformation’ agency

RT | December 25, 2024

The US State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) has shut down after Republicans cut its funding. The agency was responsible for spreading propaganda abroad and, according to conservatives, censoring dissident thought at home.

The GEC announced on Monday that it would cease operations by the end of that day. “The State Department has consulted with Congress regarding next steps,” the statement added.

The organization employed around 120 people and had an annual budget of $61 million. Established in 2016, its stated goal was to “recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts.”

In practice, the GEC spearheaded complex propaganda campaigns of its own. In two campaigns, the agency funded video games aimed at teaching children about the supposed dangers of anti-American narratives, releasing them in the UK, Ukraine, Latvia, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia.

During the coronavirus pandemic, the GEC funneled money to a range of NGOs which then compiled lists of social media accounts supposedly spreading “disinformation” about the virus and its origins, which were then presented to the platforms to be banned or removed. Many of the accounts belonged to what Twitter’s former trust and safety chief, Yoel Roth, called “ordinary Americans,” raising concerns among conservatives that the GEC was violating its prohibition on operating within the US.

In 2023, the GEC was forced to cut ties with George Soros’ ‘Global Disinformation Initiative’, after it emerged that the agency was paying Soros’ organization to compile lists of “high risk” news outlets to use in an advertiser boycott campaign. These news sites were predominantly right-leaning and American-based.

X owner Elon Musk called the GEC a “threat to our democracy” last year, describing the agency as the “worst offender in US government censorship [and] media manipulation.”

Musk was instrumental in finally shutting down the GEC. A mammoth 1,547-page spending bill put before the House of Representatives by Speaker Mike Johnson last week would have preserved funding for the agency, until Musk threatened to fund primary election challenges to any Republican who voted for it.

Musk decried the bill – which also included pay raises for lawmakers – as “criminal,” “outrageous,” “unconscionable,” and ultimately “one of the worst bills ever written.” President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance then released a joint statement against the bill, forcing Johnson to replace it with a trimmed-down piece of legislation totaling less than 120 pages.

This Musk-approved bill failed in a 235-174 vote, with 38 Republicans joining 197 Democrats to block its passage. It eventually passed after Republicans added a section suspending the US debt ceiling for two years, a move that will add trillions more to the federal government’s $36 trillion debt.

December 25, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , | Leave a comment

Pro-Western party funded anti-NATO candidate in EU state – media

RT | December 22, 2024

Allegations that Russia was behind a Romanian social media campaign that helped independent presidential candidate Calin Georgescu win a first round vote, and which contributed to the country’s constitutional court canceling the entire election, are false, an investigation has found.

Georgescu’s campaign was not funded by Russia but in fact by the pro-Western National Liberal Party (PNL), the media outlet Snoop has reported, citing the probe’s findings.

A critic of NATO and the EU and a staunch opponent of sending aid to Ukraine, Georgescu topped the first-round vote in Romania with 22.94%, beating other liberal leftist and democrat candidates.

Romania’s Constitutional Court promptly annulled the election ahead of the second-round vote, citing intelligence documents alleging ‘irregularities’ in Georgescu’s performance.

The documents claimed Georgescu’s candidacy was improperly promoted online, including on TikTok, by paid influencers and extremist right-wing groups, and that his campaign may have benefited from Russian interference – an allegation that Moscow has denied as “absolutely groundless.”

According to Snoop, Romania’s tax authorities analyzed financial flows and discovered that the campaign that promoted Georgescu on TikTok was in fact paid for by the PNL and run by Kensington Communication, a company which provides political marketing services, as well as online campaigns.

The briefs delivered to influencers were aimed at promoting “a responsible attitude and a mature choice” among Romanians that would help the country continue its “democratic path,” wrote Snoop.

Influencers were reportedly given a script to describe the qualities of a future president without giving a name. Some of them however left comments below the videos, providing Georgescu’s name.

“It is a shock to everyone that the public money that taxpayers had provided to the PNL was used to promote another candidate,” one expert involved in the investigation told the publication.

Kensington Communication has issued a statement alleging that its campaign had been “hijacked” or “cloned” and said it would file a criminal complaint.

The leak came on Friday, a day before the expiration of Romanian President Klaus Iohannis’ term, and just days before the supreme court is scheduled to hear the case initiated by Georgescu. Iohannis himself had earlier refused to leave office, citing the country’s legislation.

Georgescu, who was labelled “pro-Russian” by his critics, filed a lawsuit with the supreme court to challenge the annulment of the election results. The candidate’s lawyer described the situation as “a flagrant violation of the constitution” and “a coup d’état.” The first hearing is scheduled for December 23.

December 22, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

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