Yoon accused of staging DPRK provocation to justify martial law
Al Mayadeen | December 15, 2025
A special investigation led by Prosecutor Cho Eun-seok has revealed that former South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol allegedly orchestrated covert military operations aimed at provoking a reaction from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
According to the final report released on Monday, Yoon attempted to manufacture a pretext for imposing martial law by sending drones into DPRK airspace. The investigation found that irregular military activities, including drone flights carrying propaganda leaflets, were conducted near Pyongyang.
Evidence obtained from the mobile device of Yeo In-hyung, the former chief of Counterintelligence Command, included detailed notes advocating for the creation of a wartime or chaotic environment that would appear to require emergency rule.
Despite these efforts, DPRK reportedly did not engage militarily in response, leading to the failure of the plan to justify emergency measures. In October 2024, DPRK authorities reported multiple drone incursions over the capital and claimed one had crashed nearby, but Seoul dismissed these accusations at the time.
Failed attempt to justify martial law
With no military retaliation from the DPRK, the focus of the alleged plan shifted inward, and Yoon was accused of trying to paint the April 2024 parliamentary elections as fraudulent, blaming supposed “anti-state forces” as part of a broader narrative to suspend parliamentary functions under martial law.
The investigation found that preparations for martial law began as early as October 2023. Plans included the immediate seizure of the Central Electoral Commission upon the declaration of emergency rule. Intelligence agents were reportedly assigned to detain and isolate commission staff accused of electoral misconduct.
Per the report, roughly 30 intelligence officers participated in an operation targeting the electoral commission. The group allegedly entered the commission’s premises without any legal authority, occupying key infrastructure such as server rooms.
They also had tools on hand, including blindfolds, cable ties, bats, and hammers, intended for use during detentions. Lists of targets were read aloud, and staff were to be transported to a regional military bunker. However, the martial law order was rescinded before arrests could occur.
The special prosecutor’s office concluded that these actions were designed to dismantle opposition forces, disable parliament, and centralize power under Yoon’s control.
Impeachment, political fallout
On December 3, 2024, President Yoon declared martial law, accusing the opposition of conspiring with the DPRK in a supposed plot against the state. Within hours, the South Korean parliament voted to cancel the declaration.
Yoon complied and issued a public apology.
According to the report, Yoon also ordered military and police forces to enter the National Assembly in an attempt to dissolve it. Lawmakers managed to enter the building, some even climbing over fences, and held an emergency vote to revoke the decree. The lack of military support and no external threat led to the collapse of the operation.
Just eleven days later, on December 14, the parliament voted to impeach Yoon over his attempt to unlawfully consolidate power. The new evidence added charges of treason and incitement of foreign aggression to Yoon’s ongoing legal battles, making conviction in his criminal trials increasingly likely
New York Times’ Bret Stephens Baselessly Blames Israel Critics For Bondi Terrorist Attack
The Dissident | December 14, 2025
The New York Times published an opinion article by the neo-con columnist Bret Stephens, where he baselessly blamed critics of Israel for today’s horrific terrorist attack targeting Jews while they were celebrating Hanukkah at Bondi Beach in Australia, killing 16 people and severely injuring at least 40.
Despite the fact that very little information has even emerged as to what the motivation of the attackers was, Bret Stephens jumped the gun and used the massacre of civilians to smear his political enemies.
Among the people Stephens blamed for the terrorist attack are:
- Green Party legislator Jenny Leong for her criticism of the Israel lobby.
- Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, because he “recognized a Palestinian state and has been outspoken in its condemnation of Israeli actions in Gaza”.
- Palestinian protestors for saying “globalize the intifada”, “resistance is justified”, and “by any means necessary” while protesting the genocide in Gaza.
Stephens admits in the article that there is no evidence that the attack even had anything to do with Gaza or Israel and admitted that it was baseless speculation on his part, writing, “Though we’ll probably learn more in the weeks ahead about the mind-set of Sunday’s killers, it’s reasonable to surmise that what they thought they were doing was ‘globalizing the intifada.’”
Stephens blamed critics of Israel for the attack at Bondi, admitting that the people he slandered have a “political attitude in favor of Palestinian freedom rather than a call to kill their presumptive oppressors,” but added, “But there are always literalists — and it’s the literalists who usually believe their ideas should have real-world consequences. On Sunday, those consequences were written in Jewish blood.”
Stephens’ smear closely mirrors that of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who similarly weaponized the massacre to score political points, blaming Australia’s recognition of a Palestinian state for the attack, saying, “your call for a Palestinian state pours fuel on the antisemitic fire” and calling for more censorship of Israel-critical protests, saying, “Calls such as ‘Globalise the Intifada’, ‘From the River to the Sea Palestine Will be Free’, and ‘Death to the IDF’ are not legitimate, are not part of the freedom of speech, and inevitably lead to what we witnessed today.”
While Bret Stephens’ repetition of Netanyahu’s claim that opposition to Israel’s mass murder campaign in Gaza led to the senseless violence against civilians at Bondi is baseless-Bret Stephens has openly called for and cheered on the same mass violence against civilians he baselessly blames Israel’s critics for.
In March of 2024, Bret Stephens, in a New York Times article, said that “Israel Has No Choice but to Fight On” and called for the Biden administration to “help Israel win the war decisively” in reference to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, which included shooting children in the head and chest, opening fire on starving civilians at aid sites, bombing hospitals and targeting doctors, slaughtering journalists, mass raping and torturing detainees, bombing fertility clinics and setting refugee camps on fire, among other genocidal crimes.
In Ocotber of 2024, Stephens wrote another Op-Ed where he wrote that “We Should Want Israel to Win,” again referring to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, where even the IDF’s own internal data shows that at least 83 percent of people killed were civilians.
Similarly, in a 2023 article, Stephens wrote, “20 Years On, I Don’t Regret Supporting the Iraq War,” adding, “Readers will want to know whether, knowing what I know now, I would still have supported the decision to invade. Not for the reasons given at the time. Not in the way we did it. But on the baseline question of whether Iraq, the Middle East and the world are better off for having gotten rid of a dangerous tyrant, my answer remains yes”, in reference to the criminal U.S. invasion which killed 187,499 – 211,046 civilians.
Most recently, Stephens wrote an article titled, “The Case for Overthrowing Maduro”, cheering on the Trump administration’s slaughter of 80 people on boats in the Caribbean – who they admit they don’t know the identity of- and calling for more strikes on Venezuela in service of a regime change war.
Bret Stephens is using the massacre of civilians at Bondi Beach to smear opponents of the much larger-scale massacres of civilians that he openly supports.
UK Drops Terrorism Case Against Journalist Richard Medhurst, But Hands Files to Austria
Richard Medhurst | December 14, 2025
UK Drops Terrorism Case Against Journalist Richard Medhurst No charges will be filed, and bail has been cancelled. However, this is only a partial victory for freedom of the press, as the UK authorities handed Austria all their intel/files for them to continue the persecution.
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Richard Thomas Medhurst (1992) is an independent journalist, political commentator, and analyst from the United Kingdom with a focus on international affairs, US politics, and the Middle East.
Over Half of Germans Feel Unable to Speak Freely – Poll
Sputnik – 14.12.2025
More than half of Germans believe they cannot freely express their opinion, a poll conducted by Swiss company Tenor and published by a German newspaper on Sunday revealed.
Fifty-seven percent of Germans feel it is currently better to “be careful” when voicing their views, the survey showed. The strongest apprehensions were recorded among the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party supporters, with only 11% of AfD voters saying they feel free in expressing their views, while the remaining 89% said otherwise.
Concerns over freedom of expression are more pronounced among residents of eastern German states, where 64% said they feel reserved in expressing their opinions. In western Germany, 55% of respondents advocated for caution.
Only 18% of Germans said they approved of the country’s social and political course, with the remaining 82% expressing the opposite opinion, the study showed.
Age-wise, the strongest dissatisfaction with Germany’s political course was expressed by respondents aged 45 to 49 years. At the same time, among all age groups from 16 to 60 years and older, at least 80% of respondents have described themselves as dissatisfied with Germany’s political path.
An overwhelming 94% of AfD voters disapprove of Germany’s social and political trajectory, while 91% of the Left Party voters described its socio-political course as “not good.”
The online survey was conducted from November 26 to December 3 among 1,500 people.
An October poll conducted by the Forsa Institute for the n-tv and RTL broadcasters showed that only 26% of Germans were satisfied with Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s job performance, his lowest approval rating to date. The number of those discontent with the conservative leader rose to a record of 71%, up from 52% in May when he was appointed chancellor.
EU state jails anti-NATO politicians for ‘treason’
RT | December 13, 2025
An Estonian court has handed lengthy prison sentences to the leaders of an anti-NATO party convicted of working on behalf of Russia to undermine the Baltic state’s security.
On Thursday, the Harju District Court sentenced Aivo Peterson, co-founder of the small conservative Koos (Together) party, to 14 years in prison for treason. His associates Dmitri Rootsi and Andrei Andronov received sentences of 11 years and 11 years and six months, respectively. All three denied any wrongdoing and said they would appeal the verdict.
Prosecutors alleged that the defendants spread “narratives supporting Russia’s foreign and security policy” intended to undermine public trust in NATO and Estonia’s military aid to Ukraine.
“The defendants deliberately assisted Russia in activities directed against the Estonian state and society,” State Prosecutor Triinu Olev-Aas said.
Founded in 2022, Koos calls for Estonia to leave NATO, become a neutral state, remove foreign troops from its territory, and “refrain from participating directly or indirectly in military conflicts between other countries.”
In 2023, Peterson traveled to Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic, which Estonia considers occupied Ukrainian territory. He said at the time that he was gathering information about the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. “There are two sides to every conflict, but the information we receive from Estonian media is one-sided. All of our journalists support Kiev, which often comes across as propaganda,” Peterson said.
The Koos party rejected the allegations against its members, arguing that prosecutors had failed to present “concrete proof that their actions had caused real damage to Estonia’s constitutional order or security.”
Estonia is one of Ukraine’s top supporters and has been pushing for further militarization of Europe. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova labeled Estonia “one of the most hostile countries” in June and accused Tallinn of “spreading myths and falsehoods about the supposed threat from the East.”
Trump’s Peace Push is Attempt to Save Ukraine From Total Military and Political Collapse: Observer
Sputnik – 11.12.2025
The current moment “is critical for Ukraine as Zelensky’s regime is coming closer to collapse both politically and on the frontline, where Russia is advancing on all fronts,” Armando Mema, a member of the Finnish Freedom Alliance party, told Sputnik.
While Trump inherited the Ukraine mess from Biden, who “provoked this conflict and created this disaster,” he’s trying to prevent “a total defeat of Ukraine” because “it would be a disaster for his administration too,” Mema explained.
But Zelensky “is not interested in peace,” as seen in his recent demands for “security guarantees similar to Article 5 of NATO, [which] he knows… he cannot get,” the observer said.
Knowing that’s impossible, “he uses as an excuse to continue to be in power despite his mandate [ending]. Zelensky has banned all political opposition parties in Ukraine, arrested opponents, including regular citizens who were simply advocating for peace. Zelensky knows that if a regular election were to be held, he will lose immediately and all his administration will be prosecuted for corruption,” Mema emphasized.
As for reports of a US-mediated push to restore Russia’s access to Europe’s energy markets, Mema predicts this will remain “impossible” to achieve as long as the current crop of leaders are in charge.
“But Trump has started to dismantle the EU leadership (Macron, Merz, Ursula, Meloni and so on)” and over time they will be replaced by leaders who take account of their own countries’ interests, the Finnish politician believes.
Israeli ‘Predator’ Smartphone Spyware Exposed
By Kit Klarenberg | Global Delinquents | December 11, 2025
New research published by Amnesty International exposes the disturbing internal workings of Intellexa, and its constellation of digital espionage products. This includes ‘Predator’, a highly invasive resource linked to grave human rights abuses in multiple countries. Intellexa’s menacing technology allows government customers to access target smartphones’ cameras, microphones, encrypted chat apps, emails, GPS locations, photos, files, browsing activity, and more. It’s just the latest example of an Israeli-linked spyware specialist acting with no consideration for the law – although one wouldn’t know that from Amnesty’s probe.
Intellexa is among the world’s most notorious “mercenary spyware” purveyors. In 2023, the company was fined by Greece’s Data Protection Authority for failing to comply with its investigations into the company. An ongoing court case in Athens implicates Intellexa apparatchiks and local intelligence services in hacking the phones of government ministers, senior military officers, judges and journalists. Oddly unmentioned by Amnesty International, Intellexa was founded by Tal Dilian, a senior former Israeli military intelligence operative, and is staffed by Zionist entity spying veterans.
Leaked Intellexa marketing slide
In March 2024, following years of damaging disclosures about Intellexa’s criminal activities, the US Treasury imposed sweeping sanctions on Dilian, his closest company confederates, and five separate commercial entities associated with Intellexa. Yet, these harsh measures were no deterrent to Intellexa’s operations. The company’s service offering has only evolved over time, becoming ever-more difficult to detect, and increasingly effective at infecting target devices. Typically, civil society and human rights activists, and journalists, are in the firing line.
On December 3rd, Google announced Intellexa’s targets numbered at least “several hundred”, with individuals based in Angola, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and elsewhere potentially affected. Predator frequently relies on “one-click” attacks to infect a device. Users open a malicious link, which installs spyware that breaks open their chats on Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp and other chat platforms, audio recordings, emails, device locations, screenshots and camera photos, stored passwords, contacts and call logs, and the device’s microphone.
The vast data trove then passes through a chain of anonymising servers to hide its end destination, before being received by a customer. Predator also boasts a number of unique features designed to obscure its installation on a device from targets. For example, the spy tool assesses a device’s battery level, and whether it’s connected to the internet via sim card data or WiFi. This allows for a bespoke extraction process, ensuring devices aren’t obviously drained of network or power, to avoid stoking user suspicion.
Aladdin’s Cave
If Predator senses it has been detected, the spyware will even “self-destruct” to leave no trace of its presence on an impacted device. The methods by which Intellexa installs its malign tech on target devices is just as ingenious, and insidious. On top of “one-click” attacks, Intellexa is a pioneer in the field of “zero-click” infiltration. Its resource ‘Aladdin’ exploits internet advertising ecosystems, so users need only view an ad – without interacting with it – for spyware to infect a device.
Such ads can appear on trusted websites or apps, resembling any other advert a user would normally see. This approach requires Intellexa to pin down a “unique identifier” – such as a user’s email address, geographical location, or IP – to accurately serve them a malicious advert. Intellexa’s government customers can often readily access this information, simplifying accurate targeting. Research published by Recorded Future indicates Intellexa has covertly established dedicated mobile ad companies to create “bait advertisements”, including job listings, to lure in targets.
Leaked Aladdin explainer
Aladdin has been under development since 2022 at least, and only grown more sophisticated over time. Troublingly, Intellexa is not the only company active in this innovative spying field. Amnesty International suggests “advertisement-based infection methodologies are being actively developed and used by multiple mercenary spyware companies, and by specific governments who have built similar ADINT [advertising intelligence] infection systems.” That the digital advertising ecosystem has been subverted to hack the phones of unsuspecting citizens demands urgent industry action, which is as yet unforthcoming.
Just as disquietingly, a leaked Intellexa training video depicts how the Intellexa can “remotely access and monitor active customer Predator systems.” In effect, the firm is able to keep an eye on who its clients are spying on, and the precise private data they are extracting, in real-time. Recorded in mid-2023, the video begins with an instructor connecting directly to a deployed Predator system via TeamViewer, a commercial remote access software. Its contents suggest Intellexa can peruse at least 10 different customer systems simultaneously.
This capability is amply highlighted in the leaked video, when a staff member asks their trainer if they’re connecting to a testing environment. In response, they state a live “customer environment” is being accessed instead. The instructor then initiates a remote connection, showing Intellexa staffers can access highly sensitive information collected by customers, including photos, messages, IP addresses, smartphone operating systems and software versions, and other surveillance data gathered from Predator victims.
The video also appears to show “live” Predator infection attempts against real-life targets of Intellexa’s clients. Detailed information is shown from at least one infection attempt against an individual based in Kazakhstan, including the malicious link they unwittingly clicked that enabled their device’s infiltration. Elsewhere, domain names imitating legitimate Kazakhstani news websites, designed to trick users, are displayed. The country’s government is a confirmed Intellexa client, and local youth activists have previously been targeted by the notorious, similarly Israeli-incubated Pegasus spyware.
Screenshot of Predator dashboard listing ongoing infections
‘Business Opportunity’
The leaked video raises a number of grave concerns about Intellexa’s operations. For one, the shadowy, high-tech digital spying entity employed TeamViewer, a commercial software about which major security concerns have long-abounded, to access highly sensitive, invasive information on customer targets. This raises obvious questions about who else might be able to pry on this trove. Moreover, there is no indication Intellexa’s clients approved this access for training process, or the tutorial was conducted with even basic safeguards in place.
As such, the targets of Intellexa’s suite of spying resources not only face having their most sensitive secrets exposed to a hostile government without their knowledge or consent, but a foreign surveillance company in the process. The extent to which Intellexa is cognisant of how its technology is used by its clients is a core point of contention in the ongoing Greek legal case. Historically, mercenary spyware companies have firmly insisted they aren’t privy to data nefariously seized by their customers. Amnesty International states:
“The finding that Intellexa had potential visibility into active surveillance operations of their customers, including seeing technical information about the targets, raises new legal questions about Intellexa’s role in relation to the spyware and the company’s potential legal or criminal responsibility for unlawful surveillance operations carried out using their products.”
The latest disclosures about Intellexa have all the makings of a historic, international scandal, in the precise manner the use of Pegasus by state and corporate entities the world over has elicited international outcry, criminal investigations, and litigation lasting many years. However, the proliferation of ominous private spying tools, and their industrial scale abuse by paying customers, is no aberrant bug, but an intended upshot of the Zionist entity’s relentless crusade for cyberwarfare supremacy. In 2018, Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu boasted:
“Cybersecurity grows through cooperation, and cybersecurity as a business is tremendous… We spent an enormous amount on our military intelligence and Mossad and Shin Bet. An enormous amount. An enormous part of that is being diverted to cybersecurity… We think there is a tremendous business opportunity in the neverending quest of security.”
This investment manifests in almost every area of Israeli society. Numerous universities in Tel Aviv, with state support, hone new technologies and train future generations of cyber spies and digital warriors, who then join the Zionist Occupation Force’s ranks. Once their military service is complete, alumni frequently found companies at home and abroad offering the same monstrous services road-tested against Palestinians to private sector bodies and governments, without any oversight or guarantee these resources won’t be used for malevolent purposes.
Intellexa founder and Israeli military intelligence veteran Tal Dilian
The intelligence failures that enabled the success of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood in October 2023 did enormous damage to Israel’s credibility as a cybersecurity leader, while devastating its “Startup Nation” brand, with foreign investment in the entity’s tech industry collapsing precipitously. However, the fresh Intellexa revelations show certain elements of the sector remain in high demand, and pose an unseen threat to untold numbers of people globally. Should the firm fall into disrepute as a result, another surely waits in the wings to take its place.
Supreme Court Vacates NY Ruling That Amish Cannot Have an Exemption to Vaccination Requirements
By Aaron Siri | December 10, 2025
I’m pleased to announce that the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has vacated the Second Circuit’s decision that enabled New York State to persecute the Amish for refusing to inject pharma products in violation of their religious beliefs. SCOTUS remanded the case (Miller v. McDonald) to the Second Circuit to reconsider its illiberal and unconscionable decision. A huge step in the right direction—the day the Amish are compelled to pierce their bodies in violation of their religion is the day religious freedom dies in this country.
I discussed the Amish situation further in Chapter 11 of my book, Vaccines, Amen, including how their children are far healthier than the surrounding vaccinated population:
[T]he NYS DOH decided to wage war on the Amish community, seeking to levy financially ruinous fines on them unless they vaccinate their children. My firm has the privilege of representing the three Amish schools that received these violations. The sworn court papers in this case evidenced to the Court that the families with children in these three Amish schools have a total of 168 unvaccinated children (no vaccines) and that none of these children have any of the chronic health issues that plague children in the United States.
We also provided sworn expert evidence to the Court attesting that among a random sample of 168 U.S. children, one would expect to find (based on the background rate of chronic disease among U.S. children) 31 cases of environmental allergies, 15 cases of ADHD, 10 cases of asthma, 9 cases of food allergies, and 4 cases of ASD. Yet, the 168 unvaccinated Amish children whose families New York wants to persecute are free from the chronic health conditions—all related to some form of immune system dysregulation—that plague the vaccinated communities in New York.
Since vaccination is supposedly about improving health, and the Amish who do not vaccinate are clearly healthier, one would expect the NYS DOH to leave them alone. But that is not how this religion works. The vaccine zealots in the NYS DOH cannot stand that the Amish refuse to abandon their beliefs in favor of the religious beliefs held by the NYS DOH officials regarding vaccines. The “health” officials are willing to sacrifice the way of life and belief system of these Amish children and their community, that has kept them far healthier, if they refuse to bend the knee to adopt cult-like vaccine beliefs.
These “health” officials also apparently cannot stand that the Amish children are healthier and are even willing to wage war against them until they submit and receive every vaccine New York demands—so they can be just as “healthy” as all the children outside the Amish community.
The Amish earnestly seek to avoid conflict but because violating their sincerely held religious beliefs is not an option, they have been placed in the impossible position of being required to leave New York to simply send their healthy children to Amish schools on Amish land. As of this writing, my firm, along with co-counsel, continues to litigate on behalf of the Amish to defend their freedom to practice their religion in peace.
The Federal Law Allowing Hospitals to Target Good Physicians
By Jefferey Jaxen | December 10, 2025
By now, much of the public knows, or should know, not to step foot into a hospital without a trusted loved one or a patient advocate by their side. Many have heard the horror stories of hospitals holding people against their will, attempting to take children from parents for not consenting to treatments, or physicians simply acting counter to a patient’s consent.
Thanks in large part to the MAHA spirit, public efforts, and policy changes, a magnifying glass has begun to examine the inner workings of our American medical and public health systems. Key to this investigation is the need to heavily scrutinize corporate hospital entities and their secretive inner workings and that starts with HCQIA.
The Health Care Quality Improvement Act (HCQIA) was implemented in 1986 under the need to improve key areas of healthcare. At that time, medical malpractice was on the rise. There also was a national need to provide an incentive for physicians to engage in effective peer review to address unprofessional behavior.
The idea was sound…nearly 40 years ago. Other medical professionals would serve as the watchdogs and police the behavior of their profession within hospitals. To do so, it was agreed upon and codified into HCQIA’s law that the physicians and hospitals needed protection from legal retribution while taking action to review those among them who were failing to uphold quality medical care and increase patient safety.
America wanted better and HCQIA was their vehicle to accomplish it…in 1986.
Unfortunately, the act lacked balance in key areas and began to be exploited by the changing business model of hospitals as they moved to for-profit corporate conglomerates.
As the guardians of healthcare in this country, physicians were replaced by hospital administrators. And community-based hospitals were turned into corporate entities with financial officers and responsibilities to their shareholders.
Since 1986, consolidations through mergers and acquisitions have lead to a market dominated by a few large corporate health players.
Becker’s Hospital Review ranks Kaiser Permanente’s health system at $115.8 billion in annual revenue in 2024 – number one on a list of 65 such American health system empires together accounting for nearly $800 billion in annual revenue.
A die was cast and a paradigm descended upon American healthcare which still exerts its suffocating power to this day. The legal cover that allows it is HCQIA.
Secret tribunals, lack of due process, civil rights violations, false accusations and ultimately lack of patient safety all freely live and breath thanks to the act’s loopholes exploited by corporation hospitals.
How do good physicians become targeted using an Act which was written to uphold medical care and patient safety?
HCQIA created a National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB), wherein substandard physician practice or unprofessional conduct is reported. This database has been weaponized against good physicians.
Once a hospital opens a case on a physician, which can be without their knowledge, their name is added to this database which all but guarantees they will never be hired again. Besides malpractice, a separate category was added called a ‘disruptive physician,’ a purposely nebulous label which leaves medicine behind to land in quasi-human resources territory.
Would a hospital purposely investigate or punish a good physician?
An American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) publication noted:
“The recent standard promulgated by The Joint Commission regarding hospitals’ responsibility in addressing ‘Disruptive Behavior’ is purposely broadly drawn, general, vague and subjective which could allow hospital administrators to interpret it however they wish.
This standard has the potential to lead to the abuse of ‘Disruptive Physician’ charges. The concern in the physician community and registered by ACEP is that “disruptive physician” can be an [sic] easily manipulated to include a physician who properly defends patient care, exercises his/her right of free speech on political matters, seeks to improve various clinical practices, or who properly demands adherence to excellence.”
ACEP continues by saying:
“Some hospitals have learned that if they simply appear to follow the HCQIA ‘procedural cookbook,’ they can eliminate virtually any physician in the absence of any meaningful substantive due process.”
Steve Twedt, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, wrote a landmark series of articles titled The Cost of Courage: How the tables turn on doctors which outlined many cases of ‘sham peer review’ freely allowed by HCQIA.
An accompanying editorial wrote
“For many years, a fundamental principle for physicians has been popularly understood as: “First, do no harm.” These words are not in the ancient Hippocratic Oath, but they have been handed down as a rough but sensible synopsis. As it happens, fealty to the original wording is pointless, because across the nation some hospitals have reworked this noble idea. Too often for physicians who see harm being done, the operating principle is today: “First, make no waves.””
“The first order of business should be to revisit the Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986. Passed with the best intentions, it gave too much discretion and protection to hospital-based review panels which have too often demonstrated a tendency to shoot the physician messenger of bad tidings. Anyone who doubts this should reread the exhaustive documentation of cases cited in the “Cost of Courage.””
Hospitals caring about their bottom lines would presumably frown upon patients who’d rather not submit to rounds of chemotherapy, for parents who’d rather not have their children fully vaccinated or to hospital consumers/patients who reject taking psychiatric drugs.
For the physicians who are truly patient advocates, an ever-present shadow of faceless hospital reviewers is allowed to confidentially open a case on them with the threat of cancelling their career.
As HCQIA is written presently, those reviewers enjoy immunity from recourse, secrecy to operate, and privilege to the degree that hospitals can even withhold peer review documents from court subpoena.
Patricia Robitaille is an emergency medicine physician with extensive experience in credentialing and peer review. Currently, she is working with Dr. Coleen Rickabaugh, M.D. to advance draft legislation to significantly revise HCQIA. Below is Dr. Robitaille’s proposal to HHS and Washington lawmakers to revise HCQIA.
Honduran president accuses Trump of ‘election manipulation’
Al Mayadeen | December 10, 2025
Honduran President Xiomara Castro accused US President Donald Trump of direct interference in her country’s presidential elections, condemning what she termed election manipulation in Honduras’s disputed presidential race.
The controversy centers on the November 30 presidential election, where vote counting has been plagued by repeated computer system failures that have delayed final results. Trump-backed conservative Nasry Asfura currently holds 40.53 percent of votes, followed closely by right-wing candidate Salvador Nasralla with 39.16 percent, according to the National Electoral Council. Both candidates significantly outpace Castro’s left-wing Libre party candidate, Rixi Moncada.
Nasralla has challenged the results as fraudulent, claiming he actually leads by 20 percent and demanding a comprehensive recount. Speaking at a rally, Castro praised voters’ determination but alleged the election was marred by threats, coercion, manipulation of the preliminary results system, and tampering with voter intentions.
Castro specifically accused Trump of interference, noting his threats of consequences if Hondurans voted for Moncada. Trump openly endorsed Asfura as a “friend of freedom” while dismissing Nasralla as merely “pretending to be an anti-communist.”
In a stunning move, Trump also pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was serving a 45-year US prison sentence for facilitating the trafficking of hundreds of tons of cocaine.
More than a week after voting concluded, thousands of ballots with irregularities await review. The Libre party has called for total election annulment and urged protests, while election officials have until December 30 to declare a winner under Honduran law. The Trump administration maintains the election was fair and rejects calls for annulment.
Trump’s unprecedented election meddling
Trump’s involvement in Honduras represents an extraordinary breach of diplomatic norms. Days before the election, he issued explicit warnings that the United States would cut off financial support if Asfura lost, stating on Truth Social that the US would not throw “good money after bad” if a candidate he deemed “communist” took power.
The Trump administration employed Cold War rhetoric, labeling Moncada and Nasralla as “communists” or “borderline communists” allied with Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro. Beyond aid threats, Trump leveraged the possibility of mass deportations and blocking remittances, which constitute approximately 25 percent of Honduras’ GDP.
Moncada noted that text messages were circulated warning voters that December remittances would not arrive if the wrong candidate won, creating panic in a population heavily dependent on these funds.
The impact proved measurable. Ricardo Romero Gonzales, who runs an independent polling company, reported that Nasralla held a nine-point lead before Trump’s endorsement. After Trump intervened, the candidates reached a virtual tie. Roughly one-third of Hondurans have family in the United States, making Trump’s threats particularly potent.
José Ignacio Cerrato López, a 62-year-old retiree, told the New York Times that he initially planned to vote for Nasralla but switched to Asfura after Trump’s statement. “Trump said he was going to make things worse,” Cerrato López explained, citing fears about deteriorating bilateral relations.
The Trump corollary: A new doctrine of hemispheric control
Trump’s Honduras intervention exemplifies what his 2025 National Security Strategy terms the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. Unlike the original 1823 doctrine preventing European colonization, Trump’s version asserts US rights to intervene directly in Latin American domestic politics to prevent influence by “non-Hemispheric competitors,” specifically China, or ideologies deemed hostile to US interests.
Under Castro, Honduras severed ties with Taiwan and established relations with China in 2023, opening the door for Chinese infrastructure investment. By backing Asfura, Trump aims to install a government that will reverse or freeze these projects, viewing Asfura as the “checkmate” to Beijing’s regional influence.
A pattern of historical intervention
Trump’s interference continues a century-long pattern of US meddling in Honduras, often called the quintessential “Banana Republic” due to historical dominance by US fruit companies.
During the 1980s Reagan administration, Honduras became known as “USS Honduras,” serving as the staging ground for the proxy war against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government. The CIA trained Battalion 316, a death squad responsible for kidnapping, torturing, and disappearing nearly 200 activists.
More recently, the 2009 military coup against President Manuel Zelaya, who had moved closer to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, received tacit US support. While the Obama administration officially condemned the coup, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton refused to designate it a “military coup,” allowing aid to continue.
The National-Security Establishment’s Message to Americans
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | December 9, 2025
It’s easy to assume that with its drug-war killings in the Caribbean, the Pentagon is sending a message only to Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro: “We can kill your citizens with impunity and there is nothing that you or anyone else can do about it.”
In actuality, however, the Pentagon is sending the same message to the American people: “We can kill anyone we want, including American citizens, and there is nothing that you or anyone else can do about it.”
There are lots of commentators in the mainstream press pointing out the manifest illegality of intentionally, knowingly, and deliberately killing people on the high seas who U.S. officials are saying have violated the U.S. government’s drug laws. They are pointing out that the killings amount to state-sponsored murder. Under U.S. law and under the U.S. Constitution, federal officials are not permitted to kill people who are suspected of violating drug laws. Law-enforcement personnel are required to instead take them into custody, secure a grand-jury indictment, and prosecute them in a court of law, where they have the right to a lawyer, a jury trial, and other procedural guarantees.
But remember: This isn’t the DEA we are talking about. This is the U.S. national-security establishment — that is, the Pentagon, the vast military-industrial empire, the CIA, and the NSA— we are talking about. Once they become a law-enforcement agency for the drug war, everything changes. That’s because they are not bound by the same rules as regular federal law-enforcement agencies. They are not bound by any rules whatsoever. That’s what the Pentagon is reminding every American with its drug-war killings in the Caribbean.
Once the U.S. government was converted into a national-security state after World War II, the new national-security establishment — specifically, the Pentagon and the CIA — automatically acquired the power of assassination. Recognizing this reality, the federal judiciary made it crystal clear that it would never enforce the Constitution against the Pentagon’s and CIA’s omnipotent power to assassinate people, including American citizens.
Thus, no one could do anything about the national-security establishment’s plots to assassinate people like Congo leader Patrice Lumumba, Cuban president Fidel Castro, Dominican Republic leader Rafael Trujillo, Chilean general Rene Schneider, and, more recently, Iranian general Qasem Soleimani.
There was also nothing that anyone could do about the coups that would very possibly leave foreign leaders dead, such as Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh, Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz, and Chilean president Salvador Allende.
There was also nothing anyone could do about the national-security’s establishment’s participation in international assassination rings, such as Operation Condor.
The message has always been clear: “We can kill anyone we want, and there is nothing that anyone can do about it. Our power over you is total and complete. Accept it and get used to it.”
The message became clearer when they took out President John F. Kennedy, who had taken them on, and then crammed down American throats the “lone-nut, magic-bullet” theory of the assassination, which was always about as lame, inane, and ridiculous as labeling drug-war suspects “terrorist enemy combatants” or, for that matter, the use of scary WMDs to justify a war of aggression against Iraq, or some “attack” on the United States in the Gulf of Tonkin to justify a deadly, destructive, and senseless war in Vietnam. But Americans have always been expected to buy it all, no matter how ludicrous, and many of them deferentially have.
More recently, we shouldn’t forget their assassinations of Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman. They were American citizens, not foreigners. It was another powerful message to the American people: “We can kill anyone we want and there is nothing anyone can do about it. Accept it, embrace it, and get used to it. And don’t forget to thank us for our service.”
It’s probably also worth mentioning the federal judiciary’s deference to the authority of the national-security establishment to take American citizens into custody simply by labeling them as “suspected terrorists,” torture them, incarcerate them for the rest of their lives without a trial, and, no doubt, even execute them. That’s what the Jose Padilla case was all about.
So what if those drug-war killings in the Caribbean are illegal, as those commentators in the mainstream press are saying? What difference does it make? Everyone, and especially the national-security establishment, knows that nobody can do anything about it. That’s the powerful message that the U.S national-security establishment is sending to the American people: “We can illegally kill anyone we want, including Americans, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. We are in charge. We have total and complete control over you because we can kill you whenever we want, and there is nothing anyone can do about it.”
After all, who is going to prosecute the Pentagon and CIA killers? The Justice Department? Don’t make me laugh. The Justice Department is subordinate to the Pentagon and the CIA. The Congress? Again, please don’t make me laugh harder. Congress has long deferred to the power and majesty of the national-security establishment, especially when we consider the large number of loyal and “patriotic” military veterans and CIA officers serving in Congress. The federal judiciary? When have they ever done anything about the national-security establishment’s assassinations or, for that matter, its torture and indefinite detention camp in Cuba?
Make no mistake about it: As comforting as it might be to Americans that those illegal drug-war killings are taking place “over there” against Latin American foreigners, the fact is that the national-security establishment’s omnipotent power to kill suspected “narco-terrorists” extends to everyone right here in the United States. When the right time comes to demonstrate this point to American citizens, my hunch is that we will see lots of shocked, frightened, deferential, silent, dependent, and even supportive American sheep.
Florida blacklists CAIR, Muslim Brotherhood as ‘foreign terrorist organizations’
The Cradle | December 9, 2025
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis issued an order on 9 December naming the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as “foreign terrorist organizations,” following in the steps of Texas.
Florida’s designation makes it the second Republican-led state in as many months to target the two groups.
DeSantis said the move was “EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY” and instructed state agencies to deny employment, contracts, funding, or any state-provided resources to the organizations and to individuals providing them with “material support.”
His executive order repeats claims that the Muslim Brotherhood supports “political entities and front organizations that engage in terrorism and funnel money to finance terrorist activities.”
It also alleges that CAIR “was founded by persons connected to the Muslim Brotherhood” and ties both groups to Hamas.
The order further directs agencies to take “all lawful measures to prevent unlawful activities” by the two groups. DeSantis framed the action as part of broader legislative efforts, saying lawmakers were “crafting legislation to stop the creep of sharia law.”
He added that he hopes legislators “codify these protections for Floridians against CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood.”
CAIR, founded in 1994 and a leading US Muslim civil rights group, rejected the designation as “defamatory and unconstitutional.”
The group said it will sue the state, as it is already doing in Texas over a similar proclamation issued by Governor Greg Abbott.
In joint statements from its national office and Florida chapter, CAIR accused DeSantis of prioritizing “the Israeli government over the people of Florida” and targeting the organization because of “decades advancing free speech, religious freedom and justice for all, including for the Palestinian people.”
“We look forward to defeating Gov. DeSantis’s latest Israel First stunt in a court of law, where facts matter and conspiracy theories have no weight,” the statement added.
Neither the Muslim Brotherhood nor CAIR is designated as a terrorist organization by the US government, and so their restrictions remain at the state level.
The designations come as Trump reviews whether any US-based chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood should be blacklisted.
Federal agencies under Trump have also taken actions against individuals and organizations critical of Israel, including student visa cancellations, university fines, and the detention of British commentator Sami Hamdi during a CAIR speaking tour.
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