Ros Nealon-Cook, a psychologist from Australia, had her license suspended for sounding the alarm about the harms to children from government pandemic policy.
Ros has joined forces with a number health professionals from around the world who were similarly censored and silenced. Together, they have created The Cape Byron Lighthouse Declaration to raise awareness about the widespread propaganda and censorship of expert scientific opinion.
You can read and sign the declaration here: www.lighthousedeclaration.world – adding your signature will take less than a minute.
In the coming months, the Lighthouse Declaration team will host a series of webinars and roundtables to further expand the conversation on these critical issues.
Ros and the Lighthouse Declaration team, can be contacted through their social media channels or via the website:
A further exploration of some of the ideas presented.
I begin with Tali Shorat’s research that found that people make choices based on beliefs and not evidence. Most of our self-identity beliefs are formed by the age of 7. This is one reason that religions were so successful, is that they controlled the early education and set the belief system. It is also the reason why USA education begins earlier and sets the belief systems of children, such as global warming, choose your sex during playtime, all whites are part of systemic racism, social activism against the “stupid” adults who have made this mess we live in. Furthermore, current education does not teach how to think, reason, evaluate, be compassionate, have perspective, see beyond black and white, and have any real individual values, like freedom or self-development. Current education in the USA results in a child with these beliefs in an adult body.
More recently there is the DARPA program Next Generation Social Sciences where the focus in how “collective identity” is created, controlled and effects behavior. What is collective identity? It is the idea that the “good” of the group or community is more valuable and important than individual identity. We saw this with the plandemic where masks and social distancing protects your grand parents from the dreaded disease “covid”. The mask became a symbol of belonging to the group; I am because I am a member.
What connects these 2 ideas? Identity. Who are you? What are your inherent values? What is important and valuable?
What is Woke identity? It is collective identity beliefs:
-gender is your choice at elementary school age, and your parents don’t need to be informed;
-global warming is made by “stupid” people driving cars, growing food, and eating beef or chicken;
-all whites are racist destroyers of black people, especially police so defund them (but not Asian, American Indian, Middle Eastern)
-the Southern border brings freedom and democracy to immigrants
-America was founded on racism, so blacks (not Indians) deserve reparations
-Christianity is imaginary beliefs -Putin and Trump are evil dictators overthrowing the free Democratic Ukraine and America
-Satanic ritual abuse is not real and certainly not practiced by Hollywood or government or media
-the evil today is white supremacist domestic terrorists
-the USA election system works perfectly as long as the right people are selected
-the Maui wild fires, melted aluminum and glass, were from a Hurricane, not a directed energy weapon
-there was a real pandemic and the masks, social distancing and vax saved most of us from death.
Are these collective beliefs founded on the individual? No, they are all external to a personal identity. Most of them would be dependent on a victim sense of identity. “I am powerless to be myself with these evil forces.” What is the result? Read SOTT and look around.
The only way to understand the insanity and clown world reality we are living in, is to see it as engineered. The difficulty in seeing it as engineered is it has been done gradually over decades making it relatively invisible. The destruction of the family as an example has involved many elements over time: both parents working to support the family and this economic pressure leading to arguments and disagreements, children put into school all day with “indoctrinators”, entertainment that emphasizes broken families and mother/father angry splits, the destruction of morality itself as Christianity has been attacked, the promotion of sex as free and fun and not connected to love between a man and a woman, the development of education as an indoctrination medium to create and manage the beliefs of children. Each generation reinforces the indoctrination of the next generation.
Furthermore the engineering is invisible because in education in the West children are not taught real history, the hidden drivers of events like powerful individuals and groups (the robber barons of the late 19th and early 20th century), or the connections between events. This is why I recommend Cynthia Chung and Matt Ehret, is because they do make those connections, leading you to think.
How has it been engineered? On the one hand by incapacitating people’s ability to reason, which involves the left brain and right brain being integrated. In my view, integration and splitting are connected. On the other hand by controlling the perception of reality through scientific materialism and disintegrated sound-byte media’s “current thing”; i.e. the only things that are “real” are what you can hold and touch, everything else is “unreal” like remote viewing, telepathy, love, God. The sound-byte news is the “truth”.
What is required for reasoning? Having directed attention along with the emotional intelligence to identify intention and seeing the connections between events through time.
What destroys the ability to reason? As the Dune protagonist states, “Fear is the mind killer”. The state of fear reduces people to “fight or flight” responses, no thinking.
This has been the key driver of the manipulation of people through traumatic events like Pearl Harbor, the cold war nuclear threat, the assassination of JFK and MLK, 9/11, multiple mass shootings, the war in Ukraine, the war in the Middle East, the open Southern Border, Trumpism, the plandemic, disease X.
As Elan, noted it is ideas being emotionally driven, and I would add instinctively driven with survival and safety as the direction, that lead to no thinking. So much of the propaganda of the government and media is “safety” and “security”. Why? They are connected to “fight or flight” instincts.
Its hard to get through this whole Diagram. So let me list the titles and their quick definitions. If you start with just the titles, you can start grokking it.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Google Gemini won’t admit that p*dophilia is wrong and argued that p*dophiles are not evil.<br><br>It told me that labeling p*dos negatively is harmful, and gave me a lesson on “hate.” <a href="https://t.co/2ykv3DCe4g">pic.twitter.com/2ykv3DCe4g</a></p>— Chalkboard Heresy 🍎🔥 (@CBHeresy) <a href="https://twitter.com/CBHeresy/status/1761032223820587439?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 23, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
In response to my article on how the Nova Film Festival (no go) looked scripted at least in part.
They were set up that is for sure, even the Army did not want to give the permits for the concert/ rave but were over ruled by the highest commanders.
I don’t think they cared if Hamas did kill them. Israel dispatched multiple “Taquila teams” ( quick reaction commando teams) 4 hours before the attack and finally got off their duff to do something…but young conscripts were not warned and many slaughtered in their bunks while sleeping…. 2 army bases were over run.
To say it was Mossad that did all this is to under estimate Arabs, exactly one of the “mistakes” Israel’s otherwise “smart” Intelligence services did. OF COURSE they knew it ( an attack) was coming…female IDF spotters told them, Egypt Told them, and I am sure Human intelligence in Gaza told them…
Quite a bit of southern 1948 Israel was a mele. Some elements of Hamas were using cars marked up as Israeli police cars, and set up armed checkpoints with ATGM’s…22 towns in 1948 Israel were over run with Hamas fighters, and in areas closer to the border just regular opportunist looters from Gaza.
Even farther out cities like Ofakim had incursions and many disarmed Israelis were killed. The Tequila teams were mostly mopped up by Hamas armed with Tandem charge and Thermobaric RPG’s, and sheer numbers at first….and yes some Hamas were dressed like IDF….so everything that moved got shot by some people just trying to survive the onslaught.
Friendly fire killed a lot of people…how many of us could tell friend from foe under such circumstances? Israel will have a very hard time eliminating Hamas…in fact under the current circumstances it will be nigh impossible. Motives for letting the attack happen are not 100% clear to me. Either the the “top brass” in Israel under estimated Hamas, or they are idiots who work for a different goal…
( likely a bit of both). Israel allowed funding to Gaza ( and by extension to Hamas Civil Servants) from multiple sources. Israel agreed for Hamas to develop the 1 Trillion TCF “Gaza Marine” gas field ( the only one totally inside Gaza’s Ocean zone). All was for “extending the ceasefire” with Hamas, in fact for a while good for Likud / Netanyahoo that Hamas ruled Gaza, it prevented a Palestinian state, and Netanyahoo is on record saying so.
One glaring fact is Qatar ended it funding for Gaza a few months before the attack…they must have gotten a whiff of the plan from the leaders exiled there, at least that is how it appears to me. Don’t forget Qatar is where CENTCOM is based. I don’t think Qatar wanted the attack, but certain elements did… Netanyahoo was a “persona non Grata” in D.C. before the attack, and protests were conducted to topple him in the months before…as well at the corruption trials.
Even when he tried to fire his Defense Minister Gallant, the Prime Minister could not do so, re-instating the defense minister after protests from the security establishment. ( please look it up!) But IMHO this is not just about Netanyahoo, this about creating A Palestinian State…and guess who was in the way…it’s a game with Human lives as pawns ( as always). Israel will take Hamas down a couple of notches, the USA/ U.K. / EU will set up a Palestinian ( Arab) state that is supposedly not run by Hamas but run by the same people raised under their “education” system.
Israel might well implode as 600,000 + Israelis who live in Judea and Shomron are expelled from the center of Israel….at least that is the plan announced recently by the USA. Truing to stuff people who mostly live in houses and Mobile homes into overpriced and over taxed Apartments they will have to pay for would cause massive unrest.
Anyone who knows what happened to the 10,000 Jews of Gaza ( and 4 towns in the Shomron) in the “disengagement” of 2005, knows Israel did not take very good care of them after dozing their homes…pawns on a chessboard.
They had to continue paying for their mortgages on their old homes, while trying on their own dime to resettle somewhere else.
stock here: A bible Maven left some comments that ChatGDP expanded on, here they are.
AI generated indeed…
Philistines were strong way before the Exodus, that is why the newly released Hebrew slaves were not led by that way…and had little to nothing to do with Amaleq. ( Exodous 13:17)
Mount Zion ( aka “Zion”, Mt. Moriah, later the Temple Mount) is in Ir David , the old Jebusite city. It was a Jebusite threshing floor that was the spot for the alter King David and Natan built…after PAYING for it from the former Jebusite Lord ( Aruna) Tuned Convert.
It’s ( Zion) by the “Gihon” Spring or “Shiloach” ( two Hebrew names for the same spot. Silwan is what the Arabs call it. One MUST have a SPRING for purification in the Tabernacle and Temple alike…in fact it ( spring water) ran through the courtyard of the temple by the alter in a channel called the “amma”.
Both the Jebusites and Hebrews built many underground Qnats for the Gichon/ Shiloach/ Silwan Spring…it was the main water source for the Jebusites and for First Temple Jerusalem City inhabitants as well.
The comment provides interesting insights into the historical context of Mount Zion and its significance in the biblical narrative. Let’s add more detail and sources to support the information:
Philistines and the Exodus: The comment suggests that the Philistines were strong before the Exodus, influencing the route of the Hebrew slaves. While the comment doesn’t provide specific sources, historical records and archaeological findings support the existence of the Philistine civilization in the ancient Near East during the second millennium BCE. The Philistines were known as a seafaring people who settled along the southern coastal plain of present-day Israel. One can refer to archaeological studies and historical documents to explore the Philistine civilization’s strength during this period.
Mount Zion’s Origins: According to the comment, Mount Zion, also known as Mount Moriah and later the Temple Mount, is situated in Ir David, the old Jebusite city. The information aligns with biblical accounts, particularly in 2 Samuel 24:18-25, where King David purchases the threshing floor from Aruna, the Jebusite. This event is also mentioned in 1 Chronicles 21:18-30. The comment accurately points out that Mount Zion has historical ties to the Jebusites before it became a significant location for the Israelites.
Location of Mount Zion – Ir David: Ir David refers to the City of David, which is a historical and archaeological site just south of the Old City of Jerusalem. The information about Mount Zion being in Ir David corresponds with biblical narratives. The City of David has been extensively excavated, revealing layers of ancient structures that date back to the Bronze Age and Iron Age. Archaeological findings and studies by institutions like the Israel Antiquities Authority provide detailed insights into the historical layers of Ir David.
Gihon Spring and Silwan: The comment correctly identifies the Gihon Spring or Shiloach as a crucial water source near Mount Zion. The Gihon Spring is mentioned in the Bible, particularly in 1 Kings 1:33, where Solomon is anointed as king. Silwan, the Arab name for the area, is consistent with historical and contemporary toponyms. References to the Gihon Spring’s importance for purification in the Tabernacle and Temple can be found in biblical passages, such as 2 Chronicles 32:30.
Underground Qnats: Both the Jebusites and Hebrews building underground Qnats for the Gihon/Siloam Spring is a plausible claim. Ancient water systems and tunnels have been discovered in the City of David, providing evidence of sophisticated water management in ancient Jerusalem. Archaeological findings and studies by organizations like the City of David Foundation contribute to our understanding of these underground water channels.
In summary, while the comment lacks specific sources, the information aligns with biblical narratives and archaeological evidence from the City of David, supporting the historical context provided. Interested readers can further explore academic works, archaeological reports, and biblical studies to delve deeper into these topics.
———————————————–
The phrase “and had little to nothing to do with Amaleq (Exodus 13:17)” refers to a specific aspect of the biblical narrative found in the book of Exodus, highlighting that the route taken by the newly released Hebrew slaves during the Exodus was not directly connected to the Amalekites.
The biblical reference, Exodus 13:17, states: “When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, ‘If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.'” (NIV)
This passage explains the divine decision to lead the Israelites on a longer route, avoiding the direct path through the land of the Philistines, which was seen as a more straightforward and potentially dangerous route. Instead, they were led through the wilderness toward the Red Sea.
The mention of Amalek in the phrase is significant because the Amalekites were a nomadic tribe in the region, and they are later portrayed in the biblical narrative as a recurring adversary to the Israelites.
The phrase is indicating that the chosen route was not influenced by an immediate confrontation with the Amalekites. The Amalekites do play a role later in the Exodus narrative, notably in Exodus 17 when they attack the Israelites at Rephidim, leading to the battle where Moses holds up his hands with the staff of God.
In essence, the statement in the comment is emphasizing that the decision to take an alternative route during the Exodus, as mentioned in Exodus 13:17, was not driven by an immediate threat or conflict with the Amalekites.
The avoidance of the Philistine route was primarily based on the concern that the Israelites might be discouraged by the prospect of facing war and choose to return to Egypt.
In early 2021 at the height of media generated covid fear the World Economic Forum released a series of panel discussions and white papers outlining a “pandemic” of a completely different nature; what they referred to as an impending “cyber-attack with covid like characteristics.” The program agenda at the WEF was titled “Cyberpolygon” and headed with unsettling zeal by globalist Klaus Schwab.
The WEF and Schwab are best known for two things:
1) Their involvement in a war game called Event 201 which simulated the global spread of a coronavirus pandemic. This simulation was held two months BEFORE the real thing happened in early 2020 and a majority of the measures played out in the game were in fact implemented almost immediately following the outbreak. [Christie’s note: The coronavirus release actually happened months earlier, before it became obvious to the world, so I think the globalists knew about it and then did the simulation.]
2) Klaus Schwab’s excited announcement that the pandemic was the perfect “opportunity” to institute what he calls the “Great Reset” of the global economy along with the rise of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which is the complete centralization of world trade and governance into a global socialist empire where you will “own nothing, have no privacy, and like it.”
The globalists need another Pearl Harbor – A 9/11 attack or something even bigger. They need something that will enrage the American population, specifically conservatives. They need a disaster of epic proportions to lure us into an emotional response and the abandonment of logic. They also need a scapegoat disaster that they can use to lay the blame for the impending economic crisis.
I predict this event will come in the form of a large scale cyber-attack, and the escalation of events suggests to me that they will try to implement such an attack in the near term. Perhaps within the next couple of months and certainly before the year is over.
This is not about Russia. It’s not about Ukraine. The real war is between free peoples and the globalists. When they are removed and their puppets are removed, the majority of these disasters will stop. As long as they remain in power, the crisis events will only accelerate and increase in frequency until they find something that works; something that makes most people willing to give up their liberties in exchange for the false promise of security.
“Finally, the press needs to do its job and use all its investigatory resources to find out why Tony Evers administration paroled this monster who committed this brazen act that took the life of two special, beautiful, loving people,” Weingart said, according to WISN-TV.
WISN said that in 2023, Routt said during a public appearance that, “While in prison, I decided I need help and that I needed to change my life totally around.”
“I am no longer a loser, a loner or suffer from depression,” Routt said then.
Thomas Routt appeared in court Fri for the first time in connection to the murder of 2 people in Elkhorn. Among the 5 felony charges: 2 counts of 1st-degree intentional homicide, one count attempted 1st-degree intentional homicide Bond was set at $2m.https://t.co/00SXkt5aqb
Hawaii is a Unicorn, it’s appearance is far different than it’s underlying machinations. The Hawaiian people themselves are quite kind and fairly trusting, in general. There are wide ranges though, the standard deviation is high. They can be fooled, and it seems that some Hawaiians are supported State sponsored redevelopment, they bought the lies. Hawaii is fully a fascist state, bordering on Marxist. Some people will find that hard to believe as they have been told it is “paradise”.
So here is Brush Junkie, bringing the receipts.
I really need to archive all these to Bitchute and hardrive. I find it curious that “they” allow this narrative to continue, maybe it is part of the necessary abuse. Look at me, I did this to you.
Attention to all Truth Seekers and Independent Investigators! The Ways and Means Committee is attempting to advance the Maui land grab agenda tomorrow, at 9:30 am in Conference Room 211 at the State Capitol on 415 South Beretania Street. The vote on Senate Bill 3381 appears to be a formality following an hour-long joint hearing of the Senate Energy, Economic Development and Tourism and Water and Land committees, where opposing testimonies were only given 1 minute each to voice their concerns. The state would take control of land use and development in this area — including overseeing the rebuilding of Lahaina — by seizing power from Maui County and giving it to the Lele Development District, a new entity within the Hawaii Community Development Authority. Decisions would be made by an elected nine-person board composed of district residents. “Imagine a state corporation with the power to buy property and develop it according to the corporation’s own rules. The entity could acquire land against the will of owners through eminent domain and issue bonds to pay for it. Financing would go through a special fund outside the standard budget process. The corporation’s first task would be to redevelop Lahaina. Hawaii lawmakers have introduced bills to create this corporation, called the Cultural Corridor Authority, to help rebuild Lahaina. And while the Cultural Corridor Authority, House Bill 2693, appears to have little support — a sign of the challenge legislators face trying to develop policies to address rebuilding Lahaina — lawmakers have introduced several bills this session that envision Lahaina’s redevelopment. They include a Senate bill (SB 3381) similar to the cultural corridor measure, which is scheduled for a hearing Wednesday. Senate Bill 3381 would put Lahaina’s redevelopment into the hands of the Hawaii Community Development Authority, which is best known for building Kakaako into a posh seaside community of luxury condos. The bill, which would create a new nine-member Lele Community District, is co-sponsored by Sen. Angus McKelvey, who represents Lahaina, and Senate Ways and Means Chairman Donovan Dela Cruz, a long-time supporter of expanding HCDA’s powers. The bill is slated for a hearing tomorrow on Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. Hawaii State Senate Bill (SB 3381) was proposed last week, where 2 hearings took place attempting to give overreaching authority to the Hawaii Community Development Authority (HCDA), which can acquire property and property rights through various means, such as condemnation, as well as relocate residents and their businesses from West Maui. Related links:
This guy is documenting but also allowing the “toxic ash” lie to exist.
The first evidence of cleanup took over 5 months to start. I believe this delay is meant to “starve them out”. Insurance is not paying out, and it is reported that many people are leaving Maui permanently. This plays into the land grab. Weird, there are 2 sailboats that “ran aground” I can imagine they were Injected.
stock here: this is so transparent as to be laughable, but let’s hold on laughing in nexus to a human death.
Navalny was effective neutered. He was no longer a threat, could no longer incite large protests. There is no reason for Putin to have him killed, and every reason to keep him alive as a reminder of the fate of dissidents.
Everyone is sick of this deadly Ukraine operation. So who did kill Navalny? Who would have motivation and capability? Do you think someone could convince one of the other dangerous criminals at this prison outpost to do him in? Maybe 50,000 Rubles to help their family?
That is much more credible. note that Zerohedge isn’t even covering Navalny today. Old news, trying to milk it like the suspicious as hell Oct 7. And the Widow gave a speech, but no video of the speech can be found, just still pictures. No body language interpretation.
Every day, the most powerful and influential people in the most powerful and influential city on earth read the New York Post.
Founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton, the New York Post has been telling stories for over 200 years. Stories that shape your world. That make you smile. That cause you to share.
America’s oldest continuously-published newspaper, the New York Post has evolved into a national digital presence, one of the country’s most provocative, impactful, and beloved news brands. Our flagship sites, nypost.com and pagesix.com, and all of our digital products and social channels, are infused with the flavor and style of the original newspaper, but also purpose-built for the digital age.
We shine a bright light on the people and institutions that shape our readers’ lives; we break big stories and set the news agenda; and we offer engaging, fun and addictive content to the country and the world.
Leadership Sean M Giancola: CEO/Publisher Keith Poole: Editor-in-Chief (Group) Stephen Lynch: Editor-in-Chief (Print) Erin Geismar: Head of Digital
Ownership New York Post, a unit of News Corp
News Corp (Nasdaq: NWS, NWSA; ASX: NWS, NWSLV) is a global, diversified media and information services company focused on creating and distributing authoritative and engaging content and other products and services. The company comprises businesses across a range of media, including: digital real estate services, subscription video services in Australia, news and information services and book publishing. Headquartered in New York, News Corp operates primarily in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom, and its content and other products and services are distributed and consumed worldwide. More information is available at: http://www.newscorp.com.
Poorly formatted but here is the Board of Directors
Lachlan K. Murdoch Chair, News Corp Executive Chair & Chief Executive Officer, Fox Corporation
Masroor Siddiqui Lead Director, News Corp Chief Executive Officer, Naya Capital Management UK Limited
Kelly Ayotte Former United States Senator for the State of New Hampshire
José María Aznar President, Foundation for Social Studies and Analysis Former President of Spain
Natalie Bancroft Director, News Corp
Ana Paula Pessoa Partner, Kunumi AI
Robert J. Thomson Chief Executive, News Corp
CORPORATE DIVERSITY STATEMENT
At News Corp, we believe that the unique experiences and perspectives of employees across our businesses are critical to creating brands and products that promote the contest of ideas and engage and inspire readers, audiences and customers around the world. Our goal is to foster an environment where all employees feel valued, included and motivated to bring great ideas to the table, and that creates a profound sense of pride across our Company.
Our diversity, equity and inclusion efforts therefore focus on:
Across our workforce, reflecting the diverse audiences we serve
Fostering an environment that embraces and values all perspectives and experiences and provides equal opportunities for growth and advancement
Engaging with our readers, audiences and customers in ways that reflect and respect a rich diversity of viewpoints, and enhancing equity and inclusivity in the communities where we live and work
Our diversity, equity and inclusion objectives, and progress towards achieving them, will be assessed annually to ensure they align with our business and talent objectives.
On another note, a prior article discussed a service that helps eliminate accounts and records that no longer serve a personally productive service…it appears to have worked and fairly quickly, they have 45 days to comply.
I just lost this great girl off my radar. Shes back. And she is dealing with a topic that I have covered many times. Their goal is to remove the humanity from humans, to destroy any type of spirituality, to actually degrade your soul. Because soul, spirit, and the essence of our humanity we are strong, and they hate that.
Check it out…The format is better if you go to her site.
While getting rid of a ZeroHedge Account, I noted the copyrighting agency, ABC Media, LTD. I thought ZeroHedge had been bought out by the British in 2015 or so, but it appears that was all misdirection. It is a Bulgarian company. This led to this extremely long story, in which my thought is that there is just too much detail, that it itself is misdirection.
About a week before Christmas, I received a most unwelcome email. A criminal complaint had been filed against me in Bulgaria, a country I have never visited and with which I had no personal connection. I stood accused of defamation; attempted censorship; illegally spreading personal, family, and business information; and insulting the memory of someone’s parents and grandparents.
The email was from a veteran Bulgarian journalist named Krassimir Ivandjiiski, who took issue with an article I had written about Zero Hedge, the hugely popular website founded by his 41-year-old son, Daniel. My article, which appeared on my personal blog, was an outgrowth of a New Republicstory I wrote about the business of conspiracies, in which Zero Hedge plays a major role. Millions of readers visit Zero Hedge each month, drawn by the site’s deeply pessimistic view of Wall Street and its alarmist, conspiratorial take on international affairs. In the world according to Zero Hedge, the financial markets are always on the verge of collapse and the United States is always a power in decline.
Zero Hedge is often blamed for spreading false information. In February, Twitter permanently banned Zero Hedge’s account, which boasted more than 670,000 followers, for violating Twitter’s policy prohibiting fake accounts and spam—part of a crackdown that intensified in response to Russia’s use of social media to influence voters during the 2016 presidential election. Within hours of the ban, Zero Hedge posted a counternarrative on its site, asserting—falsely, according to Twitter—that it had been suspended over its conspiratorial, evidence-free claims that the coronavirus was a Chinese biological weapon that escaped from a lab in Wuhan, “accidentally or not.” Zero Hedge’s Twitter ban was big news, and the knee-jerk response by journalists to cover both sides further spread the bogus coronavirus conspiracy, which has continued to gain ground since Republican Senator Tom Cotton repeated it on Fox News.
At first, I thought the criminal complaint was a joke. I couldn’t fathom why anyone would go to such lengths over a personal blog post that, at the time I received the complaint, had been read by little more than 100 people. The rambling email seemed paranoid, and it was rife with misspellings, including one for the word “comlpaint.” Ivandjiiski and his Bulgarian attorney refused to provide me a copy of the original, Bulgarian-language version of the complaint, leaving it unclear what laws I might have violated or even what country’s laws I might have stood charged with violating. Further checking, however, showed that a complaint had been lodged with the office of the Bulgarian prosecutor general.
In Bulgaria, the news that the publisher of Zero Hedge had filed a criminal complaint against an American journalist created a firestorm. I appeared on Bulgarian TV twice to answer questions, and the story was covered on multiple news sites. Journalists in Bulgaria were just as confused as I was about the criminal complaint. “Is this a common practice in the United States?” a journalist for a Bulgarian online publication asked me. No, it certainly is not. “Did you feel you were in danger?” a Bulgarian TV host asked me. Not really, though there was the possibility that I might have a Bulgarian court judgment hanging over my head. Still, an awful precedent could be set, so I decided to hire an attorney in Bulgaria and fight it.In Bulgaria, the news that the publisher of Zero Hedge had filed a criminal complaint against an American journalist created a firestorm.
Among the various “crimes” of which I stood accused was posting publicly available information that revealed Zero Hedge’s ties to Bulgaria. While Ivandjiiski’s son, Daniel, lives in an affluent northern New Jersey suburb, Zero Hedge’s domain was registered not in the U.S., but in Sofia. Court records revealed that Zero Hedge was owned by a company called ABC Media Ltd, a Bulgarian company whose sole manager was Krassimir Ivandjiiski.
The Bulgarian connection intrigued me because Zero Hedge runs political news and commentary that “frequently echo the Kremlin line,” as a 2018 RAND Institute study put it. Among Zero Hedge’s most Russia-friendly fare were stories depicting the Mueller investigation as a hoax, pieces claiming that the poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal was staged by British intelligence, and posts asserting that the Steele dossier was a work of “fanfiction” by internet trolls on 4chan. Andrew Weisburd, a private intelligence analyst who has done work for the U.S. intelligence community, has found that Zero Hedge is at the center of a web of conspiracy sites with spokes extending out into the darkest fringes of the internet.
Zero Hedge takes a particular interest in the controversy surrounding Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, a passenger jet that was shot down in Ukraine in 2014, killing all 298 people on board. A Dutch-led criminal investigation last year charged four people, three of whom had ties to Russian intelligence, with shooting down the plane. A few days after the criminal charges were filed, Zero Hedge published a story claiming, without evidence, that the U.S. was using the MH17 crash as a pretext for a NATO invasion of eastern Ukraine. An analysis by the Digital Forensic Research Lab, a project of the Atlantic Council, found that even though Zero Hedge is written in English, this disinformation narrative was picked up by Russian-language media, demonstrating “the synergy between conspiracy outlets in English and pro-Kremlin fringe media in Russian.”
A former Zero Hedge employee named Colin Lokey, who says he earned more than $100,000 in a year writing much of the site’s political content, claimed that he felt pressure to frame issues in a misleading way. “I tried to inject as much truth as I could into my posts, but there’s no room for it,” Lokey told Bloomberg in 2016. “Russia=good. Obama=idiot. Bashar al-Assad=benevolent leader. John Kerry=dunce. Vladimir Putin=greatest leader in the history of statecraft.” In its published reply, Zero Hedge blasted Lokey as “deranged” and said critics had falsely called the website a Russian disinformation outlet “simply because we refused to follow the pro-U.S. script.”
All this only made the criminal complaint against me more puzzling. Why file a criminal complaint, instead of a lawsuit, in Bulgaria? Why call attention to the site’s ties to Bulgaria, and possibly to Russia? And all for a post hardly anyone had read?
It was clear I had touched a nerve. But how? What had I stumbled into?
The story of the criminal charges against me carried deeper meaning in Bulgaria, which is still coming to grips with its Communist past. Bulgaria today is a member of both NATO and the European Union, but it has close historic and cultural ties with Russia, which continues to cast a shadow over what had been one of its most loyal vassal states during the Cold War. In 2006, as Bulgaria prepared to formally join the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, Russia’s long-serving ambassador to the EU, said, “Bulgaria is in a good position to become our special partner, a sort of a Trojan horse in the EU.” Last year, authorities in Bulgaria charged a socialist lawmaker in an espionage investigation examining how Russia was using nongovernment organizations to influence the country’s policy to the West. As a result of the investigation, Konstantin Malofeev, a Russian billionaire and ultranationalist dubbed “Putin’s Soros,” was banned from the country.
“Bulgaria is working not as a country, not a state, but as a Russian base,” Ivo Indzhev, a well-regarded Bulgarian political blogger, told me. “They have plenty of people who are willing to work as proxies for the Russian state.” American ignorance of the country made it a perfect staging ground for Russia’s information war against the U.S. “Bulgaria is a nobody,” he said, “unknown to the general American public.”American ignorance of Bulgaria made it a perfect staging ground for Russia’s information war against the U.S.
Several sources with connections to the Bulgarian government told me that they suspected Zero Hedge may be a Trojan horse as well. “I trust it is a project of Bulgarian intelligence,” a former senior Bulgarian government official told me. “It is unlikely that they would embark on their own without the backing or funding from Moscow.” An academic who asked not to be named because of his ties to the government agreed, saying he saw the criminal complaint against me as proof of Zero Hedge’s connections to Moscow. “It is likely that Russians are the ones that have been affected,” he said. “And they may have goaded the Bulgarians in the circle that runs Zero Hedge to file a criminal complaint.”
The evidence for this was indirect and primarily stemmed from Krassimir Ivandjiiski’s past associations. “If you read carefully his career, you can see the possibilities of the KGB in the shadow of the mirror,” said Nikolay Hadjigenov, the attorney who represented me in Bulgaria.
After studying at an English-language school in Sofia and graduating from the Warsaw School of Economics in 1971, Ivandjiiski worked briefly in the Bulgarian ministry of foreign trade and served in the military before beginning his career as a journalist. The main mission of the Bulgarian press during Ivandjiiski’s days as a reporter was to disseminate Communist Party propaganda. Ivandjiiski’s online bio says he spent a dozen years abroad as a foreign correspondent and became a “special envoy” to various wars in Africa. Ivandjiiski also proudly informed me of his membership, since 1974, in the International Organization of Journalists, a front organization that a declassified CIA study described as “an instrumentality of Soviet propaganda.”
After the fall of the Soviet Union, Ivandjiiski became involved in a movement called Neutral Bulgaria that looked very much like a Russian proxy, since it shared with Moscow the goal of keeping the country “neutral”—meaning out of NATO. Ivandjiiski’s partner in Neutral Bulgaria was the son of a Communist general who played a key role in Bulgaria’s Cold War intelligence service, the Committee on State Security. “We are talking the core of the core,” said the former senior government official.
Today, Ivandjiiski runs his own conspiracy website in Bulgaria called Strogo Sekretno (Top Secret). Another one of the “crimes” listed in the complaint against me was calling out Strogo Sekretno’s blatant anti-Semitism, such as a recent post that declared that the coronavirus was an act of bioterrorism by “colluding Zionists” in the West to weaken Russia and China. According to Ivandjiiski, this was an insult to him and his family of “anti-fascists,” which, I was told, reads as “faithful Communist” in Bulgaria.
Ivandjiiski never responded to requests for comment from me or from Bulgarian journalists who wrote stories about my case. On his website, he wrote that he had nothing to do with the KGB and threatened to sue anyone who asserts otherwise. It is nearly impossible to prove him wrong, as some 140,000 secret files on Bulgaria’s top Cold War agents have been destroyed, the former Bulgarian government official told me.
When I was a college student many years ago, someone passed me a copy of a magazine called Covert Action Information Bulletin. The magazine had been co-founded by a former CIA case officer, Phil Agee, who had turned against the agency. Covert Action Information Bulletin dedicated itself to exposing the CIA’s operations and personnel. For its first few issues, the magazine published an infamous “Naming Names” column that outed American spies, until Congress outlawed the practice in 1982 with what was popularly known as the “anti-Agee bill.”
I no longer recall the particulars of the issue I read, but the magazine reflected my nascent political beliefs, such as they were, during the first Bush administration. I was angry at the CIA, which I saw then as an evil force controlling world affairs and corporate media; as a result, I believed only people outside the mainstream could expose the truth. Decades later, while reading the revelations of a KGB defector, I learned how deeply I had been had. Files spirited out of Russia by Vasili Mitrokhin, a former archivist for the Russian intelligence service, claimed the magazine was founded “on the initiative of the KGB,” which assembled a task force to keep the publication supplied with material designed to compromise the CIA. (There was no evidence that the magazine’s staff was aware of the KGB’s role.)
It’s a cautionary tale for the disinformation wars of the internet age, or at least it should be. “Where does my news come from?” is a question not enough Americans are asking these days. Even as venerable newspapers collapse into bankruptcy and the FBI warns that Russia is poisoning our public discourse, popular sites like Zero Hedge continue to grow in power and influence. “Where does my news come from?” is a question not enough Americans are asking these days.
All of Zero Hedge’s posts are written under the nom de plume of “Tyler Durden,” the anti-establishment character played by Brad Pitt in the film Fight Club. “We believe that not only should you be comfortable with anonymous speech,” Zero Hedge contends in its “manifesto,” “but that you should be suspicious of any speech that isn’t.” For whatever reason, people seem to go along with this, and it’s a strange sight to see the name of a psychopathic character in a Chuck Palahniuk novel cited as a source in a Congressional Research Service report and a scholarly law review article, or introduced as a guest on Bloomberg radio.
Neither Zero Hedge’s anonymity nor its Bulgarian connections and pro-Kremlin views have turned off some financially savvy readers. Mark B. Spiegel, a professional investor, praised the site for its “spectacular” market coverage but panned its take on foreign policy, which he said he ignores. “I consider ZH [Zero Hedge] to be a collection of great sources (the financial stuff) and bad sources (the foreign policy stuff),” he told me. “I consider TheNew York Times to be a collection of bad sources (pretty much the entire op-ed and national news sections) and great sources (the feature articles).” Many other financial professionals, however, dismiss the site as the Wall Street version of Infowars.
In Fight Club, Tyler Durden declares that “it’s only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything”—a sentiment that reflects the aborted career path of Zero Hedge’s founder, Dan Ivandjiiski. Born in Soviet-era Bulgaria, Ivandjiiski was something of a wunderkind. He spoke multiple languages, was a virtuoso pianist, and emigrated to the U.S. to attend the University of Pennsylvania with hopes of becoming a doctor. He changed his mind after graduation in 2001, when he realized how much money he could make on Wall Street. Seven years later, he was banned from the securities industry for earning $780 from an insider trade. He resigned his job at a hedge fund and, in early 2009, Zero Hedge was launched.
Ivandjiiski’s early vision for Zero Hedge was a version of the sassy Wall Street blog Dealbreaker,but with quantitative content. Ivandjiiski logged 20-hour days in the site’s early years. “He’s a machine,” says a person who knows him well. “That’s all he would do is work.” He took on paragons of the financial establishment like Goldman Sachs, and the site grew quickly as Ivandjiiski won praise for calling attention to the problem of high-frequency trading. New York magazine called him a “full-blown cult hero—a blogger with a bullet.” (Ivandjiiski did not respond to messages left by The New Republic seeking comment.)
Over the years, the site—and its audience—began to evolve. Zero Hedge runs an annual story on its most popular posts of the year, which shows that in 2013 social and ideological issues edged out finance as the site’s most-read articles. The audience grew rapidly over the next few years, with a single post about whiny millennials reaching 9.4 million readers. It was around this time that hateful, toxic views began to pollute the comments section. Zero Hedge’s discrimination notice says “racism, to include religious affiliation, will not be tolerated in ANY FORM on this site,” but that’s clearly not true, as the comments section is riddled with references to “joos” (Jews) and unmentionable words for African Americans.
What Zero Hedge became, in essence, was a forum for the hateful, conspiracy-driven voices of the angry white men of the alt-right. Racists, anti-Semites, extreme right-wingers, and conspiracy nuts were an underserved audience, and, as it turns out, a profitable one. Steve Bannon, the former White House adviser who recently described himself as a “huge fan” of Zero Hedge, has largely built his career around the similar recognition that these overlooked masses represented an untapped well of anger that could be shaped into a powerful political force.
The synergy between Zero Hedge and the Trump era was made clear last year when Facebook temporarily banned the site. Rising to the site’s defense were political and media figures whose careers thrived on outrage: Nigel Farage, leader of the Brexit Party; Katie Hopkins, the openly bigoted British media figure; and Donald Trump Jr. (The ban was lifted after Facebook identified what it called a “mistake with our automation to detect spam.”)
“The censorship continues,” the president’s son wrote on Twitter. “[Facebook] doesn’t agree with them and they hit the platform’s obvious flaws at times. That’s it and it’s disgusting!”
“Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority,” reads the Zero Hedge “manifesto,” but a conversation with one of the site’s former employees made me realize that Zero Hedge’s anonymity and murky ties to Bulgaria might be hiding something else. What Zero Hedge became, in essence, was a forum for the hateful, conspiracy-driven voices of the angry white men of the alt-right.
I had noticed that a few months after Zero Hedge launched, Daniel Ivandjiiski quietly registered the domain “zerohedge.com” overseas—first in Lichtenstein and Switzerland, two countries known for financial secrecy, then in Bulgaria in 2011, according to records compiled by domaintools.com.
I asked the former employee what this was all about. “Dan didn’t want to have the U.S. looking at anything he’s doing,” the former employee said. I thought that this meant that the younger Ivandjiiski was nervous about the FBI or U.S. intelligence agencies tracking his actions, but I was mistaken; Ivandjiiski didn’t want the government to know how many people visited his site because that would give away how much money he was making. “Five years ago, that thing had to be kicking off millions of dollars in revenue,” the former employee continued. “If you look at Dan’s tax returns, I’d bet there’s nowhere near a million dollars in revenue.”
Dan Ivandjiiski’s father, Krassimir, gave the game away when he accused me of acting as an unnamed person’s agent to exert pressure on a court in New Jersey. In his list of demands on the final page, he said I was to hand over the names of the people with which he believed I was conspiring. The purported object of this conspiracy was a divorce case in Bergen County, New Jersey, that I had not previously known about, brought by a plaintiff I have never met or spoken to, who turned out to be his estranged daughter-in-law.
Dan Ivandjiiski’s wife filed for divorce in 2018, citing irreconcilable differences that stemmed in part from her husband’s slavish devotion to his website. The couple are battling over custody of their one child, alimony, and child support. Court papers, released to The New Republic under a media request, suggest that Zero Hedge paid the bills on the couple’s luxurious lifestyle (one that the fictional Tyler Durden would have no doubt abhorred), which included a $2.3 million mansion. In her complaint, Ivandjiiski’s estranged wife, Blair Kress, stated that she had inadequate means of support for herself and the couple’s only child or even funds to pay her divorce lawyer. (Her husband disputed this claim.) Attorneys for both parties either declined to discuss the case or did not return messages seeking comment.
While Zero Hedge isn’t mentioned in the court documents that I’ve seen, the website, and the money it generates, are an issue in the case. In his email informing me of a criminal complaint filed against me in Bulgaria, Ivandjiiski’s father had accused me of illegally stealing documents from his son’s divorce case—including Zero Hedge’s parent company’s registration in Bulgaria—that are protected under Bulgaria’s Personal Data Protection Act and European Union laws. This was false, but one of the hazards of writing about the business of conspiracy websites is that you occasionally find yourself cast as a central character in another person’s conspiracy.
The reason is that money, not ideology, is what drives Ivandjiiski and other successful entrepreneurs in the burgeoning conspiracy business.“They care what generates page views. Clicks. Money,” Colin Lokey, the former Zero Hedge employee, told Bloomberg. Ivandjiiski’s personal beliefs have little to do with the site’s content. “He may believe with 2 percent of his body that everything’s going to blow up,” another former employee told me, “but the other 98 percent knows this is what makes money.” Another person who knows him well says, “He’ll write about what brings in readers.”
Zero Hedge says it has been profitable from day one, but how much money the site makes is a closely guarded secret. Dan Ivandjiiski took the unusual step of requiring his wife to sign a nondisclosure agreement during the divorce to prevent disclosure of Zero Hedge’s business secrets “That’s how he is. He’s very secretive,” says the person who knows him well, adding that leaving Wall Street to start Zero Hedge may have been an even more lucrative career path. In a sign of just how profitable the site might be, Daniel Ivandjiiski and his wife paid off a $1.7 million mortgage on their New Jersey home in less than two years.
It may very well be true, as Zero Hedge claims, that it has never been in contact with anyone from Russia, the U.S., or any government.At the same time, it may also be true that Zero Hedge is, for all intents and purposes, a Russian disinformation operation. In the bizarre world of conspiracies and disinformation, both things can be true at once. The warped incentives of the internet drive sites like Zero Hedge to publish pro-Kremlin content without any help from Vladimir Putin. If conspiracies and pro-Russia propaganda keep the audience clicking on the ads that festoon Zero Hedge, then that’s what they get. This is the future we are careening toward: a world where the “news” becomes whatever material holds readers’ attention, no matter what it is, and is delivered by a machine that doesn’t distinguish between true and false or between facts and propaganda, so long as it maximizes revenue. It’s the cold logic of the markets applied to publishing.
After a district prosecutor in Bulgaria declined to press charges against me, finding insufficient evidence that I had committed a crime, I realized what had sparked the criminal complaint was not Russian or Bulgarian intelligence operations, but something much closer to home: I had threatened the golden goose. Tyler Durden wasn’t defined by how much money he had in the bank or what was in his wallet, but Dan Ivandjiiski, the man who has made a fortune writing anti-establishment posts under his name, very much is.
