A Romanian who didn't like the article went on at me at some length about this [the one who made it clear they don't have counting machines and redid a hand counted vote] and while for the most part he missed the point, he did contribute something worth saying.
I didn't say but was aware of it, they removed another right wing candidate before the election, and her votes partially explain Georgescu's success, though both polling should have picked up on this and the rulers knew about this as an explanation. That wasn't an oversight, it was just the fact that this is over 6000 words already and more or less outside of my broader point.
The other thing I didn't go into is the second place candidate, Lasconi, who wholly opposed cancelling the elections, is from an "acceptable" centrist opposition party. She won by about 2500~ votes. The recount almost did have a big enough vote shift, except that it was further in her favor [millions of handcounted ballots, that isn't a suspicious recount shift.] His view was that if the post-Commie would have been in the second round, the Cordon Sanitaire principle would have worked and this was their hope. I don't know if that's true but it is a plausible explanation for what they believed would happen.
Also other Romanians think this is great, which is a relief, I run into this some times where a person simultaneously misses the point while demanding you believe the exact things about their country they do, often some of which are extreme minority views no one else says, and if you don't it's because you understand nothing. The only country I've had where they more or less all of them hated my article was Nigeria, and none of them convinced me I was wrong lol.
Don't worry too much about it, those are the same guys that support the war and sealclap taking the vaccine during the pandemic, they're the USR loud minority.
his objections were more obscure and he didn't actually believe they should have cancelled the election or that Russia interfered, he just felt I needed to hold all sorts of really specific opinions lol. As I said I've ran into this exact thing before.
He was really annoyed I said Romania was poor and corrupt because it isn't that much more poor and corrupt than Hungary...which is really poor and corrupt?
I am a romanian exjournalist and i can tell you one thing: bravo! Your article is spot on and the best i have read in the last month. Keep an eye on the events in my country because you will have alot of material for future articles. My guess? If Georgescu is eliminated from the electoral process romanians will finish what started in december 89. I was then a student in Timisoara, the city where our revolution began, and i can tell you first hand what can be done if the numbers are on your side. Empty handed against armed police and state security criminals we won then... for a few weeks. Maybe is time to have a real conclusion on that page of our recent history. Sorry for my english, it's my third language and self thaught. Be well!
I will be watching the country, and can't imagine they let him run after this. He could only possibly be more popular now that they've removed him.
I write about stories from all over the world so it is unknown if I will get back to doing anything else about Romania of this length, though I ended up writing about Georgia 3 times in the last 2 years. I will make sure to try to keep up on developing events though.
Great article and to the point. Remember that Romania has a European Cybersecurity Competence Centre (2018) in Bucharest and is a national centre coordinator country for the EU. It was not until after the Constitutional Court of Romania called for a recount of the vote and the results were confirmed as correct, did the President of Romania Iohannis call the military and secret services agencies together which was when the first allegations arose that the voting system had been "hacked" and that there were "irregularities" in the Presidential voting system. Prior to this no Romanian military agency or secret services agency had ever mentioned that there were any hacks or irregularities. However, this sudden discovery of issues after the meeting involving President Iohannis led to firstly the CCR cancelling the second round of the Presidential elections, in effect dismissing democracy and secondly giving the outgoing President Iohannis a self-serving extension of his Presidential mandate. There is currently a joke around Bucharest that the elections for the new Presidential elections will be called for on February 29, 2025. I am an Australian lawyer having lived in Romania for over 20 years and what I am seeing occurring now is that this country by the courts, effectively adjudicating who can qualify as a candidate to register for the Presidential elections (as they did with Sosoaca) and cancelling democratic votes by the people of Romania are behaving exactly as the countries and entities that they fear and claim are interfering with Romania’s free and democratic society. For the record I am a capitalist, I am not a fascist or communist but I do believe in the equal rights for all people and the due process of law which is being eroded by these entities with self-interests which are not in line with a democratic process. These are my opinions, beliefs and views based on my experiences.
Brad, you continue to be the most informative, yet creative writer on the space. I always get excited when I see a new article from you come out. Thanks for your great work.
Hah thanks, in Rome they were actually different from Magistrates though now some of those functions are combined. It is where "auspices" come from, somewhat ironically we have worse decision making now than when they based things on the flight of birds.
Yeah, at the age of 60 I realized that birds, entrails, Constitutional Courts, clouds, judges, etc... it's all about the same: their decisions will favor those who paid/pressured for the decisions, nowadays wrapped in bright birthday multicolored paper to make it more acceptable.
His comment on "aliens" was that he has been to Davos and has met with the members of WEF, and that they are like aliens, because they don't care about humanity.
It is an excellent article – as long as it is well-documented and objective.
I have a few small additions related to “Ukrainian grains”.
The press wrote that about 30% of Ukraine’s agricultural land is owned by three giants: Monsanto, DuPont and Cargill. – very interested, of course, in selling the crops (the information appeared in the Australian National Review).
According to statements by various authorities – European, American – the grains were intended primarily for African countries. Whoever opposed them contributed to the starvation of tens of millions of Africans.
However, it was found that these grains arrived primarily in European countries, and in Spain they were used to feed pigs.
In their transit, Ukrainian cereals caused damage to roads in Romania (both land and river, respectively the Chilia arm and possibly the Danube Delta ecosystem), had priority over Romanian transporters (in the port of Constanța, at land customs) and significant quantities remained in the country, either illegally or legally purchased. Local farmers suffered damage (I don't know if the compensation that came later was sufficient) because the prices at which Ukrainian cereals were/are sold were/are much lower than those of local ones, because they do not have to comply with European regulations.
Another small detail is that in all the speeches given since February 2022 until now, President Iohannis has spoken the name of Ukraine more times than the name of the country he leads, which, of course, creates confusion...
yeah it is a global market but indeed their cereals are commonly used to feed W European livestock, which is also important, though plenty of African countries do also buy Ukrainian grain.
Were they causing environmental damage moreso than the normal problems associated with moving grain overland? If they were giving them priority that is one thing, and if it is getting resold within the country that is another.
Regardless, in general, it is not reasonable to block the export of grains from Romania ports if they are following applicable laws and paying normal fees [which really it's no surprise they haven't been until now]
The passage of Ukrainian grain through Romania was not blocked for a moment. Romanian farmers and transporters were sacrificed, they suffered delays and a dramatic decrease in their own deliveries (as well as those from Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic) and the (insufficient) compensation was granted late by the European Commission.
Mr. Georgescu spoke of the need for “negotiations” in any situation. It is a major problem (this is the perception and it is reinforced by the results) because any decision from Brussels is easily accepted, without judiciously establishing its advantages and disadvantages for Romania and, obviously, without coming up with arguments against its adoption or proposals to counteract the disadvantages.
Regarding the environmental situation, the problem is complex and delicate and began from the moment when Ukraine began building the Bâstroe Canal (which connects the Danube and the Black Sea), because in this way the river flows were redistributed. The Danube is divided into 3 branches at the entrance to the Delta: Chilia (of its 111 km, about 85 km represent the Romanian-Ukrainian border), Sulina and Sf. Gheorghe. The Chilia branch takes over most of the flows. The Bâstroe Canal is a branch of the Chilia branch, in the Ukrainian Delta. The Danube Delta in its entirety (both the surface in Romania and in Ukraine) is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site. The redistribution of water has an impact on the groundwater and implicitly on the flora and fauna (fish, birds). And the deepening of the Bâstroe Canal from 3.9 to 6.5 m (actually 8 m or more), in order to become navigable for seagoing vessels, amplifies the problems and ignores international legislation that says that the Sulina is the only navigable branch.
There is so much to write about all these issues...
I live in rural America and much of what you describe is the same here. It really is funny that no one is trying to leave the EU or NATO but they find it that upsetting if the member states act as if they are sovereign and should have a say in the policy of the union and alliance.
Thank you for this excellent explanation of the Romanian situation. I've been wondering about what happened, but didn't have the energy to do any deep research myself. Great info, though the author does lose some credibility when making the claim that Newsweek still exists. Otherwise, great job.
haha I sent a pitch there the other day it's a mixed bag because Batya Ungar-Sargon runs their opinion section and I kind of hate her but also have similar political views in a lot of areas.
It is the only major "mainstream" publication I know of with a RW opinion editor.
I found it striking that there was a 24 hour period of radio silence when this first happened. That always happens when something embarrassing to the leftist narrative occurs. It’s the NPC’s waiting for the software update.
In the end they settled on the line that look at what Russia made us do and wow we really dodged a bullet there. As usual the media is A-OK with blatant lying and unsupported allegations these days.
As an independent candidate this guy doesn’t have an institutional base and doesn’t have deep public support, making him easier to defeat. Who knows, it seems that he may not have done anything illegal here, but they’ll try to use the intervening months to dig something up.
Anything that helps delegitimize the ruling regime is a good thing, I guess. And the next time the EU starts nattering about democracy there is the perfect answer available.
No hacía falta tanta dedicación para afirmar lo obvio, que la democracia es un cuento para no cambiar nada. Queda claro que la democracia occidental liberal es falsa, pero no sé señala nada sobre la afirmación que es también "gay".
hah, well "fake and gay" is kind of just an expression, but I've written about rainbow imperialism extensively elsewhere so my readers are familiar with it, but yeah it didn't particularly come up in this story. It came up more when I was writing about Georgia where similar bullshit is ongoing.
A Romanian who didn't like the article went on at me at some length about this [the one who made it clear they don't have counting machines and redid a hand counted vote] and while for the most part he missed the point, he did contribute something worth saying.
I didn't say but was aware of it, they removed another right wing candidate before the election, and her votes partially explain Georgescu's success, though both polling should have picked up on this and the rulers knew about this as an explanation. That wasn't an oversight, it was just the fact that this is over 6000 words already and more or less outside of my broader point.
The other thing I didn't go into is the second place candidate, Lasconi, who wholly opposed cancelling the elections, is from an "acceptable" centrist opposition party. She won by about 2500~ votes. The recount almost did have a big enough vote shift, except that it was further in her favor [millions of handcounted ballots, that isn't a suspicious recount shift.] His view was that if the post-Commie would have been in the second round, the Cordon Sanitaire principle would have worked and this was their hope. I don't know if that's true but it is a plausible explanation for what they believed would happen.
Also other Romanians think this is great, which is a relief, I run into this some times where a person simultaneously misses the point while demanding you believe the exact things about their country they do, often some of which are extreme minority views no one else says, and if you don't it's because you understand nothing. The only country I've had where they more or less all of them hated my article was Nigeria, and none of them convinced me I was wrong lol.
Don't worry too much about it, those are the same guys that support the war and sealclap taking the vaccine during the pandemic, they're the USR loud minority.
his objections were more obscure and he didn't actually believe they should have cancelled the election or that Russia interfered, he just felt I needed to hold all sorts of really specific opinions lol. As I said I've ran into this exact thing before.
He was really annoyed I said Romania was poor and corrupt because it isn't that much more poor and corrupt than Hungary...which is really poor and corrupt?
I am a romanian exjournalist and i can tell you one thing: bravo! Your article is spot on and the best i have read in the last month. Keep an eye on the events in my country because you will have alot of material for future articles. My guess? If Georgescu is eliminated from the electoral process romanians will finish what started in december 89. I was then a student in Timisoara, the city where our revolution began, and i can tell you first hand what can be done if the numbers are on your side. Empty handed against armed police and state security criminals we won then... for a few weeks. Maybe is time to have a real conclusion on that page of our recent history. Sorry for my english, it's my third language and self thaught. Be well!
Thank you!
I will be watching the country, and can't imagine they let him run after this. He could only possibly be more popular now that they've removed him.
I write about stories from all over the world so it is unknown if I will get back to doing anything else about Romania of this length, though I ended up writing about Georgia 3 times in the last 2 years. I will make sure to try to keep up on developing events though.
Great article and to the point. Remember that Romania has a European Cybersecurity Competence Centre (2018) in Bucharest and is a national centre coordinator country for the EU. It was not until after the Constitutional Court of Romania called for a recount of the vote and the results were confirmed as correct, did the President of Romania Iohannis call the military and secret services agencies together which was when the first allegations arose that the voting system had been "hacked" and that there were "irregularities" in the Presidential voting system. Prior to this no Romanian military agency or secret services agency had ever mentioned that there were any hacks or irregularities. However, this sudden discovery of issues after the meeting involving President Iohannis led to firstly the CCR cancelling the second round of the Presidential elections, in effect dismissing democracy and secondly giving the outgoing President Iohannis a self-serving extension of his Presidential mandate. There is currently a joke around Bucharest that the elections for the new Presidential elections will be called for on February 29, 2025. I am an Australian lawyer having lived in Romania for over 20 years and what I am seeing occurring now is that this country by the courts, effectively adjudicating who can qualify as a candidate to register for the Presidential elections (as they did with Sosoaca) and cancelling democratic votes by the people of Romania are behaving exactly as the countries and entities that they fear and claim are interfering with Romania’s free and democratic society. For the record I am a capitalist, I am not a fascist or communist but I do believe in the equal rights for all people and the due process of law which is being eroded by these entities with self-interests which are not in line with a democratic process. These are my opinions, beliefs and views based on my experiences.
That is very informative, thank you
Brad, you continue to be the most informative, yet creative writer on the space. I always get excited when I see a new article from you come out. Thanks for your great work.
thank you! I was particularly proud of this article lol
Truly a spectacular article, and I shall henceforward refer to Constitutional courts as Augurs. Kudos also for your really funny writing style!
Hah thanks, in Rome they were actually different from Magistrates though now some of those functions are combined. It is where "auspices" come from, somewhat ironically we have worse decision making now than when they based things on the flight of birds.
Yeah, at the age of 60 I realized that birds, entrails, Constitutional Courts, clouds, judges, etc... it's all about the same: their decisions will favor those who paid/pressured for the decisions, nowadays wrapped in bright birthday multicolored paper to make it more acceptable.
Great article!
His comment on "aliens" was that he has been to Davos and has met with the members of WEF, and that they are like aliens, because they don't care about humanity.
Nice, more or less exactly what I inferred about the Reptilians lol, my ability to read through media bullshit remains undefeated
Nice summary; well said.
I too tried to cover the entire mess in a series of shorter pieces, from a different angle, and will try to come back to it in the new year.
It is an excellent article – as long as it is well-documented and objective.
I have a few small additions related to “Ukrainian grains”.
The press wrote that about 30% of Ukraine’s agricultural land is owned by three giants: Monsanto, DuPont and Cargill. – very interested, of course, in selling the crops (the information appeared in the Australian National Review).
According to statements by various authorities – European, American – the grains were intended primarily for African countries. Whoever opposed them contributed to the starvation of tens of millions of Africans.
However, it was found that these grains arrived primarily in European countries, and in Spain they were used to feed pigs.
In their transit, Ukrainian cereals caused damage to roads in Romania (both land and river, respectively the Chilia arm and possibly the Danube Delta ecosystem), had priority over Romanian transporters (in the port of Constanța, at land customs) and significant quantities remained in the country, either illegally or legally purchased. Local farmers suffered damage (I don't know if the compensation that came later was sufficient) because the prices at which Ukrainian cereals were/are sold were/are much lower than those of local ones, because they do not have to comply with European regulations.
Another small detail is that in all the speeches given since February 2022 until now, President Iohannis has spoken the name of Ukraine more times than the name of the country he leads, which, of course, creates confusion...
yeah it is a global market but indeed their cereals are commonly used to feed W European livestock, which is also important, though plenty of African countries do also buy Ukrainian grain.
Were they causing environmental damage moreso than the normal problems associated with moving grain overland? If they were giving them priority that is one thing, and if it is getting resold within the country that is another.
Regardless, in general, it is not reasonable to block the export of grains from Romania ports if they are following applicable laws and paying normal fees [which really it's no surprise they haven't been until now]
The passage of Ukrainian grain through Romania was not blocked for a moment. Romanian farmers and transporters were sacrificed, they suffered delays and a dramatic decrease in their own deliveries (as well as those from Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic) and the (insufficient) compensation was granted late by the European Commission.
Mr. Georgescu spoke of the need for “negotiations” in any situation. It is a major problem (this is the perception and it is reinforced by the results) because any decision from Brussels is easily accepted, without judiciously establishing its advantages and disadvantages for Romania and, obviously, without coming up with arguments against its adoption or proposals to counteract the disadvantages.
Regarding the environmental situation, the problem is complex and delicate and began from the moment when Ukraine began building the Bâstroe Canal (which connects the Danube and the Black Sea), because in this way the river flows were redistributed. The Danube is divided into 3 branches at the entrance to the Delta: Chilia (of its 111 km, about 85 km represent the Romanian-Ukrainian border), Sulina and Sf. Gheorghe. The Chilia branch takes over most of the flows. The Bâstroe Canal is a branch of the Chilia branch, in the Ukrainian Delta. The Danube Delta in its entirety (both the surface in Romania and in Ukraine) is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site. The redistribution of water has an impact on the groundwater and implicitly on the flora and fauna (fish, birds). And the deepening of the Bâstroe Canal from 3.9 to 6.5 m (actually 8 m or more), in order to become navigable for seagoing vessels, amplifies the problems and ignores international legislation that says that the Sulina is the only navigable branch.
There is so much to write about all these issues...
That's a very good article Brad. I share a large part of your analysis.
I took some other vantage points in my own paper, would be glad to talk about it with you if you'd like to (https://francezul.substack.com/p/european-psycho-draft-1)
that was very informative, thank you
I live in rural America and much of what you describe is the same here. It really is funny that no one is trying to leave the EU or NATO but they find it that upsetting if the member states act as if they are sovereign and should have a say in the policy of the union and alliance.
Thank you for this excellent explanation of the Romanian situation. I've been wondering about what happened, but didn't have the energy to do any deep research myself. Great info, though the author does lose some credibility when making the claim that Newsweek still exists. Otherwise, great job.
haha I sent a pitch there the other day it's a mixed bag because Batya Ungar-Sargon runs their opinion section and I kind of hate her but also have similar political views in a lot of areas.
It is the only major "mainstream" publication I know of with a RW opinion editor.
I found it striking that there was a 24 hour period of radio silence when this first happened. That always happens when something embarrassing to the leftist narrative occurs. It’s the NPC’s waiting for the software update.
In the end they settled on the line that look at what Russia made us do and wow we really dodged a bullet there. As usual the media is A-OK with blatant lying and unsupported allegations these days.
As an independent candidate this guy doesn’t have an institutional base and doesn’t have deep public support, making him easier to defeat. Who knows, it seems that he may not have done anything illegal here, but they’ll try to use the intervening months to dig something up.
Anything that helps delegitimize the ruling regime is a good thing, I guess. And the next time the EU starts nattering about democracy there is the perfect answer available.
No hacía falta tanta dedicación para afirmar lo obvio, que la democracia es un cuento para no cambiar nada. Queda claro que la democracia occidental liberal es falsa, pero no sé señala nada sobre la afirmación que es también "gay".
hah, well "fake and gay" is kind of just an expression, but I've written about rainbow imperialism extensively elsewhere so my readers are familiar with it, but yeah it didn't particularly come up in this story. It came up more when I was writing about Georgia where similar bullshit is ongoing.
Gracias por la respuesta. Me queda claro y estoy de acuerdo contigo. Disculpa, primera vez que te leo y me ha gustado tu escritura. Un lector de Perú
Thank you! I did write about Peru once, but it's been a long time ago now, my first article of 2023 I believe