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YouTube bans prominent Zelensky critic

RT | August 9, 2025

YouTube has removed the 2-million-subscriber account of exiled Ukrainian Journalist of the Year Diana Panchenko, a fierce critic of Vladimir Zelensky.

In 2023, Kiev imposed personal sanctions on the former TV presenter and started criminal proceedings against her for her alleged anti-Ukrainian reporting.

Panchenko has long criticized Zelensky for rampant corruption in Ukraine, as well as his clampdown on freedom of speech. She has also condemned Kiev’s military actions in Donbass since 2014, and later accused the former actor of dragging the nation into a “forever war.”

“Diana Panchenko @Panchenko_X is one of the most famous women in Ukraine, former Journalist of the Year and opponent of the grossly corrupt Zelensky regime,” Irish journalist Chay Bowes wrote on X on Friday.

“YouTube just banned her and erased her account. She had 2 million followers,” he wrote. “The most dangerous weapon is Truth.”

Panchenko’s YouTube account is deleted as of the time of writing, but an archived snapshot shows that at least 2.09 million people subscribed to her channel as of last month.

Youtube, which is owned by Google, has extensively cracked down on and banned Russian media channels, as well as large pro-Moscow private accounts since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict.

Panchenko has also routinely criticized Kiev’s crackdown on alternative narratives in Ukraine.

Soon after the escalation of the conflict in 2022, Zelensky shut down multiple television channels associated with his political opposition and consolidated some of the country’s largest networks into a single 24/7 broadcast called the United News TV Telemarathon.

August 9, 2025 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

RFK Jr. Ends Financial Incentives for Hospitals That Report Staff Vaccination Rates

By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | August 4, 2025

The federal government will no longer financially reward hospitals for reporting the vaccination rates of their staff, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on Aug. 1. According to the press release, the incentive system was “coercive and denied informed consent.”

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said:

“Medical decisions should be made based on one thing: the wellbeing of the person — never on a financial bonus or a government mandate. … Doctors deserve the freedom to use their training, follow the science, and speak the truth — without fear of punishment.”

The move repeals a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) inpatient payment policy created during the Biden administration that tied hospital reimbursement to COVID-19 vaccination reporting.

Under the old policy, hospitals didn’t just collect the data and hold it internally. They published the data on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Healthcare Safety Network — the “nation’s most widely used healthcare-associated infection tracking system,” where it was used “as a tool for public shaming, not public health,” the press release said.

CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz applauded the repeal.

“Doctors and other providers should have the same autonomy to choose what’s right for their own individual health care needs as the patients for whom they care,” Oz said. “Today’s announcement helps put that power back in their hands.”

HHS said the repeal is part of the agency’s broader efforts to “restore medical autonomy in federally funded programs and root out financial and regulatory pressures that incentivize physicians towards pre-scripted medical decisions rather than individualized, evidence-based care.”

CMS estimated that the annual burden of collecting the data across 3,050 hospitals was between $1,378,600 and $1,608,570.

Trial Site News noted that HHS’ press release didn’t cite evidence supporting the allegation that requiring hospitals to report vaccination data had been used to shame them, but said such evidence may exist.

According to Trial Site News :

“This policy rollback is more than bureaucratic housekeeping — it’s a reflection of a national reckoning. The American people grew weary of the top-down, one-size-fits-all vaccination regime advanced by HHS agencies like the FDA and CDC during the COVID-19 era.

“What was framed as public health became, in the eyes of many, a vehicle for coercion, censorship, and loss of personal agency. … The rise of RFK Jr. to lead HHS isn’t a fluke; it’s a clear mandate from the public demanding medical freedom, transparency, and an end to government overreach disguised as science.”

Jon Fleetwood wrote in a Substack post today that the change suggests HHS may be restructuring how it relates to the medical community. The agency “now favors decentralization and professional freedom over command-and-control enforcement,” he said.

Many hospital workers resisted COVID vaccine

The issue of COVID-19 vaccination mandates for hospital staff has been contentious.

Earlier this year, the Court of Appeals of the State of Kansas ruled that Saint Luke’s Health Systems improperly fired an employee when it rejected her request for a religious exemption from the hospital system’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

In 2021, over 100 hospital workers in Texas sued their employer for requiring them to get a COVID-19 shot, alleging the mandate forced them to “subject themselves to medical experimentation as a prerequisite to feeding their families.”

The same year, a New Jersey hospital system fired over 100 employees who refused to get a COVID-19 shot.

In 2023, CMS eliminated COVID-19 mandates for healthcare workers. Since then, healthcare worker COVID-19 vaccination rates have dropped.

Last fall, roughly 85% of healthcare workers declined a COVID-19 booster, according to U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary.

Will HHS eliminate vaccine incentives for pediatricians?

The HHS policy change didn’t reference an incentive program that rewards pediatricians who follow the CDC childhood immunization schedule. Kennedy raised the issue last month during an interview with Tucker Carlson.

But Polly Tommey, program director for Children’s Health Defense’s (CHD) CHD.TV, brought it up during her testimony last month at a U.S. Senate hearing on vaccine injury.

“We need our pediatricians to stop getting bonuses for vaccinating our children,” said Tommey, whose son was injured by a childhood vaccine.

CHD Chief Scientific Officer Brian Hooker, who also has a vaccine-injured son and testified during the Senate hearing, said pediatricians can receive hundreds of dollars for each fully vaccinated child, depending on certain factors.

CHD CEO Mary Holland said in a recent interview with OAN News that vaccine incentives for pediatricians have “completely distorted” pediatric care.

“A pediatrician with a large practice of thousands of children in it can earn hundreds of thousands of dollars, really serious money, by having a 90% or a 95% uptake rate,” Holland said.

AAP tells doctors it’s ok to drop patients if parents refuse to follow vaccine schedule

A recent investigation by The Defender found that high vaccination rates are key to a profitable pediatric practice, according to data from insurance incentive structures and an analysis of a pediatric practice’s income.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), in a 2016 report on “Countering Vaccine Hesitancy,” told pediatricians that it was an “acceptable option” to dismiss families who refused to vaccinate their children.

The AAP receives funding from numerous vaccine makers, including AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, GSK, Merck, Moderna and Pfizer, according to data compiled by White Rose Intelligence.

Last month, the AAP sued Kennedy and other HHS officials over the decision to no longer recommend COVID-19 vaccines for healthy kids and pregnant women.

On July 28, the AAP issued a policy statement urging states to eliminate all non-medical exemptions to vaccination requirements for school kids, including religious and conscience-based exemptions.

When The Defender asked HHS if it planned to eliminate financial pressure tied to pediatric vaccination reporting, an HHS spokesperson said the agency “continues to evaluate solutions that align with current public health priorities and the best available scientific evidence.”

Related articles in The Defender

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

August 8, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Moldovan region rejects ruling against local Euroskeptic leader

RT | August 8, 2025

The parliament of Gagauzia, an autonomous, predominantly Russian-speaking region in Moldova, has rejected the sentencing of a local Euroskeptic leader to seven years in prison, calling it illegal and politically driven.

Gutsul, who was elected in 2023 and has consistently advocated for close ties with Russia, was found guilty of channeling illegal funds from an organized criminal group to the banned Euroskeptic SOR party and of financing protests against the Moldovan government.

Gutsul denied the charges, calling the process a “political execution” conducted “on orders from above.” The ruling triggered protests outside the courthouse against Moldova’s pro-Western government.

The Gagauzian parliament rallied behind Gutsul. In a resolution issued Thursday by Gagauzia’s People’s Assembly and Executive Committee, MPs said they “categorically reject and do not recognize the verdict” of the Moldovan court.

The document described the ruling as a “politically motivated” attempt “to eliminate the legally elected head of the autonomous region.”

“We consider this verdict a political reprisal, planned and executed from above,” the resolution said, adding that the ruling was “an act of political vengeance” that “undermines the autonomous region’s legal status.”

The Gagauzian authorities said Moldova’s government bears “full responsibility for the destabilization” of the situation in the region, while suggesting that the crackdown seeks to tip the scales ahead of the nationwide parliamentary elections slated for late September.

Moscow criticized the verdict as an attack on democracy. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the ruling was labeled in both Moldova and Gagauzia as “an act of revenge” and “a fabricated case” without credible evidence. “It became the culmination of repression by the Chisinau regime against the entire Gagauz autonomy,” she added.

August 8, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

The Price of Speaking Truth

Dr. Martin Feeley and the cost of courage

By Trish Dennis | July 31, 2025

In April 2023, The Irish Times published a quietly devastating article under the headline:

The doctor who questioned Ireland’s Covid policy and lost his job: ‘We destroyed young people’s lives for what?’

This article told the story of Dr. Martin Feeley, a man who had already lived an extraordinary life before becoming a reluctant public dissenter during one of the most charged periods in Irish history.

A vascular surgeon by training, Martin Feeley was also an Olympian, representing Ireland in rowing at the 1976 Summer Games. Born in Lecarrow, County Roscommon in 1950, he qualified from UCD in medicine and later became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. In 1985, he earned a Master’s in surgery, and by 2015, he had been appointed Group Clinical Director of the Dublin Midlands Hospital Group, one of the most senior medical administrative roles in Ireland’s Health Service Executive (HSE.)

By any measure, Dr. Martin Feeley was an exceptional person, not just accomplished, but genuinely liked and respected by his colleagues, patients, friends and everyone who knew him through the Irish rowing community. He was known and loved not just for his clinical expertise, but also for his warmth, integrity, intelligence and humour. Those who worked alongside him described a kind, principled man, generous with his time, supportive of younger colleagues, and unwilling to play politics with the truth.

A sample few of the many heartfelt tributes left in the Condolence Book on RIP.ie following Dr. Feeley’s death in December 2023, read:

“I had the privilege to work with Mr Feeley in AMNCH and that made all the difference to me. He exemplified integrity, empathy and good sense. Authentic, kind and encouraging, a Colossus amongst men and medics. And always brilliantly funny.”

“A decent man, a great teacher, much respected.”

A patient shares:

“Thank you Mr. Feeley for saving my life in 2013. Fly high with the Lord. RIP.”

What stands out in the many tributes is how deeply admired he was, not just for his medical expertise, but for his warmth, kindness and humour and the deep impression he left on those who worked with him. Again and again, the tributes spoke of his decency and integrity.

And yet, when it really mattered, during a period in Irish life when decency and integrity were needed most, it was precisely those qualities that cost Dr. Feeley his job.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Dr. Feeley raised a profoundly important question, one that has aged far better than the policies it challenged: Was the State’s response proportionate to the actual risk faced by the population, particularly children and young adults?

Dr. Feeley did not deny the virus or downplay the risks. He simply raised a measured, evidence-based concern, which was that the restrictions being imposed were doing real and lasting harm. Drawing on clinical experience and moral clarity, he warned of the damage being done, especially to children and young people, through shuttered schools and colleges, cancelled sports, and the loss of everyday human connection. He believed that those at low risk could, in time, build natural immunity, helping to reduce the danger to the most vulnerable.

His critique wasn’t vague or emotional. It was specific, well-informed, and in hindsight, remarkably prescient. Among the key points he raised:

  • Restrictions should have focused on those most at risk, not applied as blanket rules to everyone. Healthy younger people, he argued, could have built immunity more safely, helping society reopen sooner and more fairly.
  • He condemned the government’s communication strategy, especially the daily case counts, calling them a form of “deliberate, unforgivable terrorising of the population.”
  • His concerns were later echoed by others, including former HSE infection control chief Professor Martin Cormican who suggested that Dr. Feeley wasn’t alone in his thinking, just in his willingness to say it out loud.
  • He examined ICU projections and found they didn’t match the alarmist tone of official briefings. On the ground, he was seeing only a handful of Covid patients in intensive care, far fewer than the public had been led to expect.
  • He urged staff to keep perspective, pointing out that statistically, a healthy person under 65 was more likely to be injured cycling than to die of Covid.
  • He objected to the new definition of a “case”, expanded to include any positive test result, even in people with no symptoms, a shift that he believed inflated fear and distorted the public understanding of risk.

And Dr. Feeley never backed down. If anything, he felt that the passing of time only confirmed the accuracy and necessity of what he said.

From the very early days of the pandemic, Dr. Feeley spoke with a compassion and honesty that few public health figures dared to match. In an article written in October 2020 for The Irish Times, written as Ireland entered a second lockdown, he captured the human cost in a single, unforgettable sentence:

“Life is not a video game which we can freeze-frame and restart when a vaccine arrives. All living is being suspended, but unfortunately all lifetime is passing, even for those with six months or a year to live, with or without Covid-19.”

This line “Life is not a video game which we can freeze-frame and restart when a vaccine arrives” gets to the heart of the problem with lockdown thinking. Real life cannot be paused. Time moves forward inevitably, especially for those who are elderly, ill, or nearing the end of life.

And it’s not only the old people who lost something. For young people too, there are moments in life, rites of passage, milestones, celebrations, that happen once and cannot be relived or recreated. Birthdays, graduations, first jobs, leaving school, falling in love, saying goodbye. These are not things you can reschedule. That time was taken from our young people, and it can never be given back.

Dr. Feeley’s point was that by trying to preserve life at all costs, we ended up suspending the very things that made life worth living, human connection, care, life experiences and milestones. When he said “all life time is passing even for those with six months or a year to live”, it was a stark reminder that waiting for a vaccine wasn’t just a pause for some, it was a loss they would never get back. It challenged the technocratic idea that society could be put on hold without consequence, and called for a more humane, proportionate approach, one that saw people not as data points but as human beings living in real time.

And yet, for speaking so clearly and ethically, he was punished.

In September 2020, Dr. Feeley was forced to resign from his role as Clinical Director of the Dublin Midlands Hospital Group under pressure from the HSE following a series of media interviews. In that April 2023 article from The Irish Times, Dr. Feeley is quoted as saying that “within days” of airing his objections to the restrictions he was removed from his position. He specifically stated:

“I was forced to resign as opposed to just walking away.”

He attributed responsibility for his exit to the former HSE Chief Executive Paul Reid, although Reid denied involvement.

He was further quoted in that article of having said about his decision to speak publicly against the lockdowns from inside the HSE:

“The only stupid thing I did,” he said, “was to say what I thought. I should have kept my mouth shut.”

Those words should shame us. Because they don’t just reflect one man’s bitter experience, they reflect a sick and dishonest culture. A culture that punished integrity and rewarded compliance and where the cost of speaking truth was professional exile. In Dr. Feeley’s case, the silence of Irish medicine was not only deafening, it was shamefully complicit.

Following Dr. Feeley’s death in 2023, tributes poured in across social media. Colleagues, former patients, independent politicians, and members of the public remembered him not just as a brilliant surgeon, but as a man of deep principle and uncommon courage. Independent TD Michael McNamara called him “a doctor unafraid to question the consensus.” Another tribute read: “If only we had more men like him in this country. We lost a good one. RIP Dr Feeley.” One especially searing comment captured the public mood: “This poor man was shunned… by the HSE… for challenging the ‘science’ that caused untold damage… RIP.”

These aren’t just empty or generic eulogies, they’re heartfelt tributes from people who understood and valued what he stood for.

At this stage in the game, five years on from that bleak chapter, I shouldn’t be surprised by the Irish establishment’s failure to learn anything meaningful from all of this, and yet somehow I still am. Despite everything we’ve seen and lived through, I remain both astonished and disheartened by how little reflection or change seems to have taken place.

Not only has the Irish state failed to reckon with the silencing of Dr Martin Feeley and others like him, it now appears poised to reward the chief architect of the very policies they dared to question. Dr Tony Holohan, who served as chair of the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) during the pandemic and was widely seen as the public face of Ireland’s Covid response, is now reportedly being considered for the highest office in the land, the Irish Presidency.

Often described as Ireland’s answer to Dr Anthony Fauci, Dr. Holohan became synonymous with the government’s lockdown policies. Under Dr. Holohan’s watch, Ireland implemented one of the strictest lockdown regimes in the EU, including the longest closure of public venues across Europe. On a global level, Ireland had the fourth most stringent lockdown in the world, behind only Cuba, Eritrea and Honduras.

Whether or not this presidential bid ultimately materialises, the very suggestion that Dr. Holohan could be a contender for the most prestigious office in the state, is a striking example of the Irish establishment doubling down on steroids. Rather than reassess, Ireland appears intent on enshrining its mistakes.

To elevate Dr. Holohan now is to consecrate a version of history in which men like Dr. Feeley were cast as dangerous and disposable, and those who imposed sweeping harms on the Irish population are hailed as statesmen. It sends a chilling message that in Ireland, telling the truth as you see it, even from a place of expertise, ethics, and professional integrity is punishable. That the architect of Ireland’s extreme lockdowns, a man who dictated when we could hug our loved ones, is now being considered for the Irish presidency is not only shocking but morally obscene.

In fact, were he still with us today, Dr Martin Feely is exactly the sort of person the Irish people should have elected as their President, being someone who truly stood for the people of Ireland. He did his utmost, against all odds, to advocate for their rights and to stand firm against the harms he knew were being inflicted upon them.

Dr. Feeley’s voice may be silent now, but what he stood for must continue to be heard. He spoke with reason, compassion and integrity in a time of hysteria and institutional cowardice. He recognised the true human cost, not just in lives lost, but in lives unravelling, in relationships strained or severed, in connections broken, and in communities turning on themselves.

Dr Feely understood that this harm was not abstract but deeply personal and that it fell heaviest on those least equipped to bear it, those children and young people whose milestones were stolen, the elderly who were isolated and forgotten, and the already marginalised who were pushed further to the edges of society.

To honour him now is to face what we did, not in blame, but in truth. We must reject the whitewashing of history that elevates bureaucrats and silences decent and honest people. We have to ensure that in any future crisis, conscience will not be a sackable offence.

We lost Dr. Feely too soon, and with him, a voice the Irish people sorely needed. I would have loved the chance to meet him, shake his hand, and thank him for speaking up for all of us, for humanity, and for decency. I wish I could have told him that in person. Still, I write it now in the hope that someone, somewhere might read about this remarkable man and find courage and inspiration in his example.

Martin, may you rest in peace. You were one of the good ones. You stood for what was right when it mattered most. We remember you with gratitude, respect and love.

August 7, 2025 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

Exiled Moldovan opposition head decries police crackdown

RT | August 7, 2025

Moldova’s police action targeting alleged electoral corruption amounts to political persecution of the opponents of the government, according to exiled opposition politician Ilan Shor.

The authorities in Moldova said on Thursday they are conducting 78 search warrants across the country targeting individuals described as “members and sympathizers of a criminal organization.”

Ilan Shor, who leads the opposition Victory political bloc from abroad, claimed that the actions are directed at silencing his movement. The bloc is trying to overturn its ban from taking part in the upcoming parliamentary election against the ruling Party of Action and Solidarity.

“Law enforcement is turning offices and homes upside down solely under this demented suspicion of interference in the 2025 election, which hasn’t even taken place,” Shor said. “These searches are just more political repression and intimidation of anyone who refuses to support those scoundrels.”

Last week, President Maia Sandu, who Shor branded a “microdictator,” accused the Russian government of planning to covertly funnel more than €100 million ($115 million) to her political opponents ahead of Moldova’s parliamentary vote scheduled for September. The Kremlin rejected the claim, calling it another attempt by Chisinau to deflect attention from what it described as the government’s erosion of democratic norms.

Sandu has defended her administration’s crackdown on what she claims are pro-Russian criminal networks, saying these actions are critical to keeping Moldova on the path to EU membership.

Shor, who now resides in Russia, is the founder of the SOR party, which was outlawed by the Moldovan authorities in 2023 after its candidate, Evgenia Gutsul, won a regional election in the autonomous Gagauzia region.

Gutsul, now a leading figure in the Victory bloc, which was formed in 2024 by Euroskeptic politicians, including former SOR members, was sentenced this week to seven years in prison over alleged financial crimes. She denied any wrongdoing and called the verdict an attempt at political assassination.

August 7, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

How Germany is coercing immigrants into normalising ‘Israel’

By Timo Al-Farooq | Al Mayadeen | August 6, 2025

With a prerequisite residency period of five years, Germany boasts one of the fastest pathways to EU citizenship. But what seems like a gracious timeline comes at a high moral price, depending on where in Germany you live.

In June, Brandenburg, which surrounds the capital Berlin, became the second state in Germany after neighbouring Saxony-Anhalt to make it mandatory for citizenship applicants to recognise “the security and right to exist of the state of Israel”, as the state capital Potsdam’s oath of loyalty form phrases it.

Yes, the same “Israel” that came into existence by ethnically cleansing 750,000 Indigenous Palestinians from their land, is responsible for the longest-running military occupation in modern history, and for the past 21 months has been waging a genocidal war of unvarnished savagery on Gaza, where an entire civilian population is also deliberately being starved to death since March.

“To say that our country is turning into a banana republic with its pro-Israel fanaticism would be a trivialisation of this insanity,” commented Tarek Baé, a German journalist and content creator of Arab descent, on Germany’s latest ploy to silence dissent in the service of a foreign, rogue entity.

Signing over one’s conscience

Brandenburg’s governing centrist Social Democrats (SPD) pressed ahead with the controversial move with neither knowledge nor consent of their left-wing coalition partner, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), which lambasted the SPD’s solo run as “a direct attack on the heart of our democracy.”

The “Israel” caveat to the state’s naturalisation process now requires applicants who wish to become German citizens to sign over their conscience, with the text of the pre-formulated pledge exhibiting the boilerplate false equivalencies inherent to Western Palestine/”Israel” discourse.

Predictably, the form follows the oppressive practice of equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism. It also posits that two supremacist wrongs, Nazism and the Zionism, make a right when it says that Germany’s “national socialist genocide” against European Jews justifies its “special and close relationship with Israel,” the rationale behind Germany’s infamous Staatsräson.

“Israel’s” “repressive hybrid regime of settler colonialism, occupation and apartheid” and “Zionism’s urge to Judaize Palestine”, to quote from Israeli activist scholar Jeff Halper’s book Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine, is not mentioned, of course.

Unsurprisingly so, as telling the truth about “Israel” would raise uncomfortable questions about why a democratic country like Germany would want to have a “special and close relationship” with such an ostensibly anti-democratic entity in the first place, let alone force prospective Germans to have one too.

Weaponising migration law

Following October 7, 2023, the wolf in sheep’s clothing that is Germany immediately began cracking down on Palestine advocacy in an hitherto unprecedented manner.

By doing so, it used the Hamas-led attacks on thar day as an excuse to do away with basic democratic rights, at long last shedding the snakeskin of play-acted sympathy for the decades-long plight of the Palestinian people to reveal a deep-seated, racist hatred of them.

Last month, a coalition of prominent Palestine solidarity groups released a landmark report which meticulously details Germany’s expedited metamorphosis from a democracy to “one of the most repressive EU states in relation to Palestine advocacy.”

Among the wide array of authoritarian measures, the report highlights Germany’s “use of migration law as a punitive stick” against “non-citizens involved in Palestine activism.” In this context, the weaponisation of naturalisation law against long-term immigrants has emerged as a creative way to coerce a significant demographic bloc of racialised people into normalising the Zionist project.

Brandenburg’s controversial move is already having an undesirable bandwagon effect in Berlin, home to the largest Palestinian diaspora in Europe and Germany’s epicentre of police brutality against anti-genocide protesters.

Kai Wegner, the city’s Zionist mayor, has voiced strong sympathies for adding a pro-“Israel” Nibelungentreue to citizenship applications in Berlin. He has repeatedly defamed peaceful anti-war protests as violent and antisemitic and spread mendacious copaganda that paints lawless hooligans in uniform who treat Palestine solidarity rallies as beat ’em up video games as victims.

State-sponsored blackmail

Compulsory oaths of loyalty, however controversial the practice, are nothing new in the context of citizenship applications in Western democracies. But they normally require the applicant to profess fealty to the country whose citizenship they wish to acquire.

Extorting signed pledges of allegiance to a third-party entity, particularly one whose “most cruel and machiavellian scheme to kill, with total impunity” has turned Gaza into “a graveyard of children and starving people”, to quote UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini, is an unprecedented anomaly and further cements Germany’s deplorable outlier status even among “Israel’s” most devoted allies.

As a result of Germany’s latest instance of state-sponsored blackmail in the service of legitimising “Israel”, citizenship applicants in Brandenburg will now be forced to make a Sophie’s-choice-like decision between their moral integrity and the secure legal status, political rights, and global mobility that a German nationality provides.

This dehumanising sadism reflects Germany’s overall post-October 7 authoritarianism which is leaving principled people trapped between the proverbial rock and a hard place: either speak out against genocide and risk being brutalised by the police, persecuted by the legal system or fired from your job, or be silent and forced to live with the corrosive effects of a guilty conscience.

August 6, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Trump Admin DENYING DISASTER RELIEF to Americans Over Israel Stance?

Glenn Greenwald | August 5, 2025
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August 6, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

Civilian Executions by Retreating Ukrainian Forces Not Uncommon – Russian Official

Sputnik – 05.08.2025

LUGANSK – Reports of Ukrainian forces executing civilians during army retreats are not uncommon, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s ambassador-at-large on the crimes committed by Kiev, Rodion Miroshnik, told Sputnik on Tuesday while commenting on an executed civilian’s body discovered near the city of Krasnoarmeysk.

“Unfortunately, such incidents [executions of civilians by the Ukrainian armed forces] are not uncommon. We have plenty of documented evidence from Avdeyevka, Chasov Yar, Dzerzhinsk, and Selidovo. When Ukraine classifies people who do not want to evacuate deep into Ukrainian territory as ‘waiters’, strangers, ‘separatists’ and carries out purges of the civilian population,” Miroshnik said.

Most of these cases are similar to each other and have a number of characteristic features, the official said, adding that victims are typically found with restrained limbs and visible close-range gunshot wounds on their bodies. These discoveries follow Ukrainian troops’ retreat from populated areas, he added.

“The terrible discovery near Krasnoarmeysk only confirms the system that exists or is generated by the Ukrainian political regime. They [Ukrainian authorities] seem to sort their own civilians into categories, evacuating supporters of the regime while targeting those choosing to remain on their own land. This is a policy generated by [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy, his entourage and the political regime that is today a military dictatorship on the territory of Ukraine,” Miroshnik said.

The official emphasized that international awareness is critical regarding Ukraine’s treatment of civilians, as reports indicate severe division between handling of Zelenskyy’s supporters and dissenters, with the latter facing lethal violence.

August 5, 2025 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Trump conditions $1.9B in disaster funds on rejection of Israel boycotts

MEMO | August 4, 2025

The Trump administration has threatened to withhold roughly $1.9 billion in disaster preparedness funding to states and cities that support boycotts of Israel or Israeli firms.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said in grant notices published Friday that applicants must comply with its internal terms and conditions, which include clauses mandating that entities seeking funding not support efforts to blacklist Israel.

Applicants must not support severing “commercial relations, or otherwise limiting commercial relations specifically with Israeli companies or with companies doing business in or with Israel or authorized by, licensed by, or organized under the laws of Israel to do business,” according to the 2025 fiscal year terms and conditions, posted in April.

August 4, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Moldova Could Disappear If Pro-Western Regime Retains Power – Advisor to Regional Governor

Sputnik – 03.08.2025

CHISINAU – The state of Moldova could vanish from the world map if the pro-Western regime remains in power after the September 28 parliamentary elections, Mikhail Vlah, an adviser to Gagauzia head Yevgenia Gutsul, said on Sunday.

“The romanization of our state has been ongoing since the early days of Moldova’s independence. Back in the 1990s, a significant part of the intelligentsia and political elite set a course for uniting our country with Romania. Unfortunately, this process has not stopped for 35 years… If the pro-Western regime retains power in any way after September 28, Moldova as a state may disappear from the world’s political map,” Vlah said on Telegram.

Governments change and political parties in parliament come and go, but the strategy for incorporating Moldova into Romania remains the unchanging goal of the Moldovan-Romanian political elite, he said.

“In kindergartens and schools, children are taught the history of Romanians, ignoring our own Moldovan history. Our history is ancient and rich, starting with Stephen the Great. All key political and economic processes in the country occur under the direct influence of the neighboring state. The highest state positions are held by Romanians: the president, the prime minister, the parliament speaker. The head of Moldova’s National Bank is a Romanian woman, the judges of the Constitutional Court are Romanians, the leaders of the Information and Security Service, and so on,” Vlah emphasized.

The Moldovan government has been criticized for cracking down on the opposition and arbitrarily arresting its leaders. Gagauzia’s governor was detained at the Chisinau airport in March on charges of violating campaign finance rules and falsifying documents. Opposition lawmakers have been routinely detained at Moldovan airports for visiting Russia, while criminal cases continue piling up against government critics.

The government has also blocked over 100 Telegram channels and shut down more than a dozen media outlets, including Sputnik Moldova and several major TV channels.

August 3, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

This Hollywood-Backed Bill Would Give Government Power To Block Websites

By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | August 1, 2025

Lawmakers in Washington are once again attempting to give the United States a legal pathway to block websites, a power the federal government has never officially held on a broad scale.

The latest push comes in the form of the Block Bad Electronic Art and Recording Distributors Act, better known as “Block BEARD,” introduced in the Senate by Thom Tillis, Chris Coons, Marsha Blackburn, and Adam Schiff.

We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.

On its face, the bill targets foreign websites accused of piracy. But the mechanism it creates would establish something far more significant: a formal, court-approved process that could be used to make entire websites vanish from the American internet.

Under the proposal, copyright owners could go to federal court to have a site labeled a “foreign digital piracy site.” If successful, the court could then order US service providers to block access to that site.

The reach is broad. The term “service provider” here mirrors the broad definition in the DMCA, potentially covering everything from ISPs and search engines to social media platforms, and perhaps even VPNs.

Proponents say this is about protecting the entertainment industry. In reality, it’s about setting a precedent. Once the government has a tool to block certain sites, history shows the definition of “unacceptable” content can expand. Piracy today could easily become something else tomorrow.

The ramifications go beyond the music and movie business. If courts can order an ISP to make a site disappear from view, the same logic could eventually apply to other types of content deemed problematic.

And because the bill has no public transparency requirements, the public could be kept entirely in the dark about which sites are blocked, why they’re blocked, or how long the blocks remain in place.

Supporters in the entertainment industry, including the RIAA and Motion Picture Association, are openly cheering the bill, pointing to similar measures overseas they claim have worked without harming free speech.

But the US is not the same as other countries. The First Amendment’s protection of speech and access to information means this kind of censorship tool carries far more constitutional baggage here than it does elsewhere.

What Block BEARD really represents is a milestone. If passed, it would be the first time the US creates a standing legal process for cutting off access to entire websites at the network level.

The DMCA was sold to the public in 1998 as a way to modernize copyright law for the internet age. But from the beginning, it has been controversial, not just because of its reach, but because of how easily it can be weaponized as a tool for censorship.

The most infamous part of the law is the “takedown notice” process under Section 512. In theory, this allows copyright holders to request the removal of infringing material from websites, search results, and hosting platforms. In practice, it’s often used to silence lawful content.

Artists, journalists, independent creators, and political activists have all been hit with DMCA notices for work that clearly falls under fair use, commentary, or criticism.

Sometimes, companies use the DMCA to scrub negative reviews, hide embarrassing information, or push competing material offline. The burden falls on the person targeted to challenge the notice, a process that can be slow, confusing, and intimidating.

Because most online platforms follow a “remove first, ask questions later” approach to avoid liability, even clearly bogus claims can make content vanish instantly. This takedown system can and has been abused by governments, corporations, and individuals to suppress speech they dislike, with little immediate recourse for the target.

The DMCA was supposed to protect creativity, but its design makes it a ready-made censorship lever. It grants private parties the ability to effectively erase content from the internet without a court order, bypassing the normal checks that protect free expression.

That’s why proposals like Block BEARD raise such red flags. If the DMCA already allows individual posts, videos, or search results to be removed at the click of a button, adding a legal process to block entire websites is the next logical, and far more dangerous, step. It moves the conversation from “this link is gone” to “this whole site no longer exists for US users.”

The DMCA has already shown how copyright enforcement can be twisted into a censorship tool. Giving the government and rights holders a formal way to block entire sites risks creating a far broader, far harder-to-challenge system of online suppression. Once in place, history suggests it will be used for far more than just piracy.

August 1, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

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