NOTE: X is apparently undergoing a massive cyber attack from a hacker group called Dark Storm Team so the following X accounts may not always resolve.

Matt Taibbi finally weighs in, and it’s good, as usual:

Can an election be canceled for fear that the winner would cancel elections? This is the political paradox at the heart of the case involving Romanian presidential candidate Calin Georgescu, who was barred from a May rerun of last year’s presidential election. 
…
It’s impossible to review what’s happened in Romania and not think of the last three years of legal battles over Donald Trump’s eligibility to run for President. Romania is our might-have-been, and Europe’s successful model for lawfare. Alternatively, it’s a new form of preemptive color revolution, in which the dictator is ousted before taking office:

Read the whole thing.

One of the many criticisms of Iran is that whoever runs for President is pre-selected by a group of the Ayatollah’s minions, a variation of the old Communist Party farce where you could vote for different people – as long as they were all communists.

Given the terrible history of repression of democracy and civil liberties that one of those formerly communist nations suffered, Romania, you’d think the EU would have more sense, especially after the lecture and warning that VP Vance gave them a couple of weeks ago:

Romania has banned right-wing nationalist Calin Georgescu from running for President. He won the first round of elections, and ther court quickly overturned it. He is now *still* leading in the polls, so they simply banned him from running.

Don’t think that this is just a Romanian Court that made the decision. The EU, specifically the European Council (the EC, whose members face no electors) are behind this. We know that because they admitted it:

Nothing says ‘democracy’ like restricting who gets on the ballot.  And nothing is more democratic than banning the leading candidate because the European Union technocrats disagree with him. Nothing says “protecting democracy” better than a bunch of bureaucrats carefully vetting candidates to ensure that they will give those bureaucrats all the power to make the most important decisions. Because bureaucrats, not stupid voters, know best. 

Democracy in Europe is fast becoming a joke and is actually on the way to being dead in the sense that no matter who you vote for, nothing changes – as Germany is enjoying.

The great irony and paradox here is that the EU are blaming Putin for this when they’re actually doing to themselves exactly what Putin wants – discrediting the Western democracies.

It’s nice to see some European voices speaking out:

Herewith an interview (those are still allowed) with the man himself. He doesn’t strike me as particularly Putinist and I think he may be on to something.

There are now huge protests supporting him which have, regrettably, devolved into riots in some parts of Romania.

As someone who cheered when the Berlin Wall fell and all these nations were freed from the communist yoke this is so depressing to witness.