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Anyone who still believes in Switzerland must support the lawyers who have filed a lawsuit against Cassis.

It was not long ago that Switzerland could be proud of playing a role in the world. As a recognized neutral power, it could contribute to ending conflicts through discreet mediation or by hosting negotiations between warring parties. As the depositary state of the Geneva Conventions, it advocated for respect for international law in wars and enjoyed high esteem. It placed highly qualified personnel at the service of international justice to punish war criminals. In the Balkans, Carla Del Ponte is still regarded as an icon of justice today. Thanks to her, around a hundred high-ranking Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Albanian officials from Kosovo were convicted of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Neutrality and the defense of the rule of law were two pillars of Swiss identity and its reputation in the world.

A break occurred in 2022 when Bern, under pressure from the EU, adopted unnecessary sanctions against Russia. Between 2014 and 2022, we had contented ourselves with ensuring that European and American sanctions were not circumvented. This system preserved the credibility of our neutrality. Why could this system not simply have been continued after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a conflict that is not ours? This was never explained to us. The break with Swiss tradition continued during the Gaza war, triggered by the massacres committed by Hamas and other Palestinian militias on October 7, 2023. The International Court of Justice very quickly established on January 26, 2024, that there was a risk that the violence of the Israeli retaliation could constitute genocide. International law is clear: every state must do everything in its power to prevent genocide. This is something we failed to do in the 1940s when the Holocaust occurred.

Nevertheless, Bern has continued to authorize the sale of dual-use goods—items intended for both civilian and military purposes—to Israel. These goods could have been used to destroy 90 percent of schools, 80 percent of hospitals, and more than 70 percent of residential buildings in Gaza. And of course, some of these Swiss products may also be responsible for the deaths of 70,000 people in Gaza, including 83 percent civilians—figures confirmed by Israel. Authorizing the sale of these dual-use goods is akin to giving bullets to a person suspected of murder.

Furthermore, the Federal Council sees no problem with private and public institutions investing heavily in the Israeli arms industry. Elbit, which sold the famously non-functional drones to the Swiss Armed Forces (VBS), is a major beneficiary of these financial flows. This, despite the fact that this company has cost Swiss taxpayers 300 million. But even though Switzerland lost a lot of money on this purchase, some are not shy about profiting from it. The former head of Armasuisse, Jakob Baumann, is now Chairman of the Board of Directors of Elbit Systems Switzerland. Financing the Israeli arms industry is like giving money to someone suspected of murder so they can buy a gun.

One could argue that the defense of the law is a legal war, a form of lawfare. But then, should no murderer be brought to justice because they might be a victim of an unjust system? One could claim that in the Trump era, the law is worthless anyway, that everything is a matter of power relations. But what would be the consequence of abandoning our identity-forming values of neutrality and the rule of law? Renouncing what distinguishes us is the direct path to Switzerland’s subjugation to American and European interests.

Therefore, anyone who still believes in Switzerland must support the lawyers who have filed a lawsuit against Cassis.

Original article:  weltwoche.ch

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A finales de este año, Brasil celebrará elecciones generales. En público, el optimismo sobre la reelección del presidente Lula es prácticamente unánime entre los miembros del PT y los sectores más leales al gobierno. En privado, ese optimismo sigue predominando, pero ya no es absoluto. Existen preocupaciones sobre la manera en que el gobierno y el PT están gestionando las controversias que involucran al presidente.

Lo que inquieta a algunos sectores del PT son los escándalos políticos a nivel nacional, ampliamente difundidos por los medios de comunicación y explotados por los adversarios para intentar vincular directamente el nombre del presidente. Ya son tres escándalos consecutivos que han encendido la señal de alerta.

El primero fue el caso de corrupción en el INSS y la posibilidad de que Lulinha, hijo de Lula, fuera convocado a declarar ante la Comisión Parlamentaria Mixta de Investigación (CPMI) en diciembre de 2025. Eso finalmente no ocurrió, lo que representó una victoria para el gobierno. Sin embargo, fue una victoria parcial: el simple hecho de que el nombre de su hijo apareciera en el caso ya perjudica a Lula, reforzando su asociación con la corrupción y consolidando prejuicios en el electorado de derecha y centroderecha.

Pero no solo su hijo podría estar implicado. Su hermano, Frei Chico, fue uno de los primeros nombres mencionados cuando se destapó el escándalo en el INSS. Incluso el propio Lula podría llegar a ser mencionado en alguna investigación, dado que parte de la corrupción habría ocurrido durante su tercer mandato. Ese temor existe dentro del PT, y por eso ningún parlamentario del partido firmó la solicitud para crear la CPMI.

Aunque Lula no tenga ninguna implicación real en el escándalo, dentro del partido se sabe que investigaciones, declaraciones, pruebas y noticias pueden ser distorsionadas o manipuladas por actores interesados en comprometerlo, ya sea desde dentro de los esquemas investigados o desde las propias instituciones. Miembros de la Policía Federal, del Congreso o de la prensa podrían desempeñar ese papel. Esto ya ha ocurrido en otras ocasiones, como en el Mensalão y en la Operación Lava Jato.

Además, aliados importantes de Lula también podrían verse involucrados. Este es otro motivo por el cual el PT no apoya una CPMI sobre el INSS: la presión de aliados dentro del Congreso Nacional. Si el partido respaldara la investigación, pondría en riesgo sus frágiles alianzas con el centrão. Lo mismo ocurre con la posibilidad de una CPMI sobre el Banco Master.

Solo un senador del PT firmó la solicitud para crear la CPMI del Master. La preocupación es que, dada la amplia repercusión pública —tanto nacional como internacional—, cualquier vínculo que se establezca entre Lula y el banquero Daniel Vorcaro podría desencadenar una nueva campaña sobre la corrupción del PT. Incluso si Lula no estuviera directamente involucrado, el gobierno es vulnerable debido a las alianzas establecidas con diversos partidos del centrão, considerados ampliamente como los más corruptos. Al asociarse con estos sectores y aceptar la lógica de hacer concesiones a cambio de apoyo —lo que, en última instancia, implica transferencia de recursos—, Lula y el PT entran en un juego peligroso que puede volverse en su contra en cualquier momento. El escándalo del Master podría ser ese momento.

El nombre de Lula y el de personas de su confianza —al menos públicamente—, como Gabriel Galípolo, Guido Mantega, Jaques Wagner y Rui Costa, ya han sido mencionados en relación con Vorcaro, incluyendo reuniones fuera de agenda y alianzas institucionales con empresas del banquero. Esto está siendo explotado por la oposición y por periodistas, no solo por los bolsonaristas. El caso del Banco Master, que también involucra al ministro del STF Dias Toffoli, revela hasta qué punto altos funcionarios del Estado mantienen vínculos estrechos con el sector privado. Si incluso los ministros del STF, hoy entre los hombres más poderosos del país, enfrentan intensa presión de la prensa, del Congreso, del bolsonarismo y de empresarios, no sería difícil que el escándalo se canalizara hacia el gobierno federal a pocos meses de las elecciones.

Incluso si ninguno de estos dos escándalos logra afectar directamente a Lula, es posible que, al menos en el caso del Master, el PT sufra un impacto significativo debido a las relaciones que se mencionan con el PT de Bahía. El gobierno de Bahía es un activo estratégico del partido a nivel nacional para movilizar recursos y alianzas en la campaña presidencial. Si allí el partido resulta afectado por el caso Master, podría perder aliados, apoyo político y recursos financieros importantes para Lula. Además, el daño se extendería al conjunto del partido y al propio gobierno, dado que Rui Costa es ministro de la Casa Civil y Jaques Wagner —principales figuras del PT bahiano— es líder del gobierno en el Senado.

Por último, en relación con el caso Master, es evidente que dentro de determinadas instituciones —la Receita Federal, la Policía Federal e incluso el Poder Judicial— existen divisiones y tensiones con ministros del STF. Esto no significa necesariamente que se estén fabricando mentiras contra ellos, sino que posibles irregularidades pueden filtrarse con facilidad por acción de adversarios internos, funcionarios de menor rango con intereses personales o empleados vinculados a rivales políticos dentro de la propia institución. Si esto ocurre en el STF, que en los últimos años ha operado de manera relativamente homogénea y sin grandes crisis, cabe imaginar lo que podría suceder dentro del gobierno federal, que es una coalición heterogénea con intereses diversos y contradictorios, en un año electoral.

En cualquier caso, aun si el nombre del presidente o el de sus aliados no aparece vinculado directamente al escándalo, el impacto propagandístico será considerable. Los adversarios de Lula utilizarán la relación de cercanía y alianza entre el gobierno federal y el STF desde el 8 de enero para reforzar la narrativa de que Lula está rodeado de “delincuentes”, que forma parte del “sistema” y que se sostiene sobre instituciones que no merecen confianza.

El tercer foco de preocupación es el homenaje a Lula realizado en el Carnaval por la escuela de samba Acadêmicos de Niterói. Una notificación nacional del PT hizo público el nivel de inquietud del partido ante este episodio. Después de pedir a sus miembros que evitaran incluso hacer publicaciones en redes sociales durante el desfile, el PT advirtió: “destacamos que cualquier acción que incumpla estas recomendaciones puede perjudicar significativamente al Partido de los Trabajadores y al Presidente Lula”.

Además de posibles problemas con la justicia electoral, el contenido del desfile generó preocupación porque está siendo utilizado por el bolsonarismo para intensificar la campaña contra Lula entre el electorado evangélico. Lula y el PT han intentado acercarse a este sector, con resultados todavía frágiles. Sus adversarios explotarán con fuerza la cuestión moral durante la campaña, aprovechando críticas y burlas derivadas del desfile “lulista” dirigidas contra los evangélicos. Lula también podría perder apoyo más amplio, no solo entre evangélicos, debido al descenso de la escuela de samba a la segunda división, lo que será presentado por la propaganda bolsonarista como prueba de que todo lo relacionado con Lula fracasa y de que el gobierno es un fracaso.

En general, tanto en público como en privado, petistas y sectores oficialistas se muestran optimistas respecto a la reelección de Lula. Sin embargo, especialmente el episodio del homenaje en el Carnaval ha generado la percepción de que podrían surgir obstáculos más graves para la victoria electoral. “La reelección de Lula será muy difícil. La derecha está muy cohesionada y organizada. La disputa será muy dura, pero creo que Lula va a ganar”, resume una asesora, reflejando el sentimiento predominante entre los sectores gubernamentales.

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A U.S. Supreme Court ruling against Donald Trump’s tariffs sent the 47th president into a rant that leaves little doubt who he is and what Constitutional crisis he is about to cause, writes Joe Lauria.

Reacting to a U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling his tariffs policy unconstitutional, U.S. President Donald Trump launched into an unhinged rant on Friday confirming that he considers himself above the law as any tinpot authoritarian leader would.

The court ruled 6-3 that the U.S. Constitution makes clear that only Congress can levy tariffs, which are really taxes, on the U.S. population. Thus Trump’s extensive tariffs, imposed since January 2025, are illegal and American consumers and companies are due a refund of around $200 billion, the court said.

The ruling unleashed Trump in full psychotic mode, railing against justices as “fools and lapdogs;” the plaintiffs in the lawsuit the court ruled on as “sleazebags, major sleazebags” serving an unnamed foreign power and he announced a new 10 percent worldwide tariff “over and above our normal tariffs already being charged” in defiance of the court.

Trump argues he is still allowed to impose tariffs over the heads of Congress by the authority of the 1974 Trade Act. That act allows a president to unilaterally impose tariffs of up to 15 percent (hence the new 10 percent measures), but only for 150 days, after which Congress must continue them.

However, Friday’s ruling means he must vacate the existing tariffs, which he is so far refusing to do.

Trump tries to justify his existing tariffs as having been imposed under an emergency act. But the court struck that down, arguing in essence there is no economic or national security emergency in the United States today.

In his madness, Trump furiously claimed he had authority to impose embargoes and “destroy countries” but the Supreme Court dared rule he couldn’t even put a single dollar tariff on a nation’s imports. He exclaimed:

“I am allowed to cut off any and all trade or business with that same country. In other words, I can destroy the trade, I can destroy the country. I’m even allowed to impose a foreign country-destroying embargo. I can embargo, I can do anything I want, but I can’t charge one dollar because that’s not what it says, and that’s not the way it even reads. I can do anything I want to do to them, but I can’t charge any money. So I’m allowed to destroy the country, but I can’t charge them a little fee.

Think of that. How ridiculous is that? I’m allowed to embargo them, I’m allowed to tell them you can’t do business in the United States anymore, ‘we want you out of here,’ but I want to charge them $10. I can’t do that.

It’s incorrect, their decision is incorrect. But it doesn’t matter because we have very powerful alternatives … .”

In fact, Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution asserts Congress has the authority to “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises,” and to regulate commerce with foreign nations.  Embargoes, such as those on Cuba, North Korea and Iran, are imposed by Congress, not the White House (unless there is an emergency).

With Trump having amassed a U.S. strike force poised to illegally attack Iran, the timing of his cry that he can destroy nations brings little comfort.

An Historic Constitutional Crisis

1808 British political cartoon ridiculing the ‘Embargo Act of 1807’. President Thomas Jefferson reassures his petitioners, ruined businessmen, that the embargo on warring Europeans may show good results in 15 to 20 years. (British Cartoon Prints Collection/U.S, Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons)

Trump has uncorked a Constitutional crisis reminiscent of one of his favorite presidents, Andrew Jackson, who in 1832 defied a Supreme Court decision regarding Cherokee sovereignty in the state of Georgia that ultimately led to the tribe’s forcible removal in the Trail of Tears.

There have been a few other instances of presidents defying a federal court. Thomas Jefferson, in a case relevant to Trump’s, defied an order by Supreme Court Justice William Johnson in 1808, while Johnson was doing double duty sitting on the federal circuit court in South Carolina.

The ruling involved the Embargo Act of 1807, which forbade all U.S. foreign trade to stop British and French ships from harassing U.S. ships on the high seas. It was an even more extreme measure of economic warfare than Trump’s tariffs.

The South Carolina case involved a shipowner whose ship was impounded by federal customs officials and who sued to get it back.

Jefferson had appointed Johnson to the Supreme Court, but Johnson ruled that under the Embargo Act, only Congress could authorize the seizing of a ship.  Jefferson ignored the ruling.

The case went to the Supreme Court in February 1808 but the court said it lacked appellate jurisdiction to review the case so Jefferson continued to defy the lower court’s order until the end of his term.

The Embargo Act was an economic disaster, even greater than that brought on by Trump’s tariffs. Exports plunged from $108 million to $22 million in just one year, sinking U.S. GDP by five percent before Congress repealed the Act in March 1809.  The unpopularity of the Act led to the protest slogan of spelling embargo backwards: O grab me.

An 1807 political cartoon showing merchants caught by a snapping turtle named “Ograbme” (“Embargo” spelled backwards). The embargo was also ridiculed in the New England press as Dambargo, Mob-Rage, or Go-bar-’em. (Public Domain/Wikipedia)

In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus to detain suspected Confederate sympathizers without trial. Sitting as a circuit judge, Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney, who delivered the majority opinion in the 1857 Dred Scott case that African-Americans couldn’t be U.S. citizens and Congress couldn’t prohibit slavery in U.S. territories, ruled in 1861 that only Congress could suspend habeas corpus and he released an imprisoned Confederate, a member of the Maryland legislature.

Lincoln ignored the ruling. In 1863 he got Congress to authorize him to do so.

If Trump continues to defy the court he will add his name to this record. Indeed, he gave his clearest indication that he will defy the Supreme Court on the existing tariffs, which were struck down.

“All of those tariffs remain. They all remain,” he said. “I don’t know if you know that or not. They all remain. We’re still getting them and we will after the decision. I guess there’s nobody left to appeal to.”

It will be interesting to see how he interacts with Supreme Court justices who sit in their robes in the front row at Tuesday’s State of the Union address.

Original article:  consortiumnews.com

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Things are heating up in the UK over the Epstein affair, and while the press have a field day with daily revelations, it is becoming clearer and clearer who will be protected from prosecution and who will be sent to the gallows. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, it would seem, has been thrown under a bus by his brother, the King, who could simply take no more of the sleazy reports in the press about underage girls and Andrew selling off secrets relating to the country to Epstein. Something had to be done to make a clear statement, if for nothing else, to protect the British royal family from being dragged down into the sewer with Andrew.

The arrest by UK police of Andrew on the morning of 19th February is interesting as it throws up a number of questions which surely British journalists will not bother asking. Namely, why did it take so long? And perhaps more importantly, who actually made the decision that Andrew had to be arrested?

Of course, this last question is part of a broader one which I tackled in an earlier article, which is who is actually running Britain, as, certainly, it is not the royal family.

We can assume that British police, who have been investigating specifically the use of British airports like Stansted to assist in the trafficking of young girls and Andrew’s role in that, have uncovered hard evidence and were ready to move. But it is also as though someone in the UK, very powerful, is directing these decisions. One obvious explanation is the Rothschild banking family, which has very close connections with the British royal family and, as they are at the heart of the Epstein so-called investigation on both sides of the Atlantic, are calling the shots. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Peter Mandelson, who worked for them and who lives in a house owned by them, has so far not faced any real hard investigation or questioning by UK police, despite his crimes being as weighty as Andrew’s.

So, if the Rothschilds have decided that Andrew would be a very good sacrificial lamb to lead to the slaughter, which can bring back some credibility to the House of Windsor and Charles as monarch, we can expect him to do jail time and to be hung out to dry. But the Rothschilds might have decided that Andrew had to be used in such a way as it also drives media attention away from Trump and other key figures who are still in power and serving their masters — but who are certainly implicated in the tawdry affair of trafficking underage girls around the world for their revolting carnality.

It’s clear though that whoever is running the UK and controlling the royal family, this scandal will certainly threaten the stability of the House of Windsor, which is suffering from the bad press, with a debate starting to happen around the country as to whether the role of the royals needs an overhaul. King Charles will be more than aware that the British public are angry and are directing that rage at him, as was recently the case when he was heckled in public by members of a crowd.

The news though of Andrew’s arrest is shocking and will reverberate around the world for days to come. Never in the history of the royal family has any member been arrested like this. You have to go back to 1957, when a trove of secret service documents was made available to Queen Elizabeth II which showed beyond any doubt that the former King Edward VIII, while in exile living in Portugal during the war, was in fact colluding with the Nazis and was hoping that Germany would overpower Britain and reinstall him as monarch. He could have been tried for treason, but the Queen chose to not go ahead with such a brutal treatment.

For Andrew, it seems there is no depth profound enough for his brother King Charles to push the knife in. It is as though he wants to make an example of Andrew, and the police may well press charges in the coming days which will certainly mean jail time. That is, of course, if all we are seeing is not an elaborate PR stunt designed to humiliate Andrew but nothing more. The escape plan of leaving the UK and rushing to the UAE, where the emir there has already given him a lavish apartment in Abu Dhabi, seems less and less far-fetched as the days continue. What is notable about the arrest of Andrew is that journalists have hinted that it is based on his abuse of power, which of course is about selling state secrets, not about the depraved life he led in the vortex of Epstein’s paedo sex ring.

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On 4 February, the Hague Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia [ICTY], transformed into the ominously sounding “Residual Mechanism,” in disregard of its established practice, declined to grant early release to Serbian prisoner Milan Martić. In the final phase of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, Martić was the leader of the Serbian minority in the Krajina region of Croatia. Having completed two-thirds of his thirty-five-year sentence, Martić was under the impression that his petition for early release was opportune and would be granted. He had been accused of a variety of offences, most of them standard fare in Tribunal proceedings: murder, persecution on political, racial and religious grounds, imprisonment, deportations, the plunder, etc. But what stands out in Martić’s indictment is the charge that after the start of the Croatian offensive against Krajina Serbs in the summer of 1995 he ordered his forces to fire missiles at the Croatian capital of Zagreb, allegedly killing and injuring a number of civilians.

That is essentially the same kind of violation of international humanitarian law for which Ante Gotovina, Martić’s opponent who commanded the attacking forces on the Croatian side, was put on trial by the same Hague Tribunal. Gotovina however, unlike his Serbian counterpart Martić, was never in the situation of petitioning the Tribunal for early release. The reason for that is that he was acquitted, notwithstanding that the military operation he directed resulted in the expulsion of a quarter million Serb residents, the strafing of their refugee columns by his military aircraft, and the cold-blooded slaughter of 2,000 Serb civilians as they were fleeing desperately from Gotovina’s advancing columns.

This marks the Tribunal’s second refusal in the last several months to grant an early release petition, after rejecting a similar request filed by Gen. Radislav Krstić. Coincidentally, both prisoners whose petitions were denied just happen to be Serbs. And notably, never before that in the Tribunal’s three-decade history had an early release petition submitted by any prisoner who had served two-thirds of his sentence been denied. During the aforementioned period the Tribunal released routinely nearly a hundred convicted ICTY prisoners of diverse ethnic backgrounds, once they had satisfied the two-thirds criterion.

What makes the cases of Milan Martić and Radislav Krstić so different as to justify such a radical departure from established Tribunal (or “Mechanism,” if you prefer) practice?

Setting forth her reasons for rejecting Martić’s petition, presiding judge Graciela Gatti Santana stated that in her opinion the prisoner Martić has failed to convincingly demonstrate a degree of “rehabilitation” sufficient to justify release before the completion of his full prison term. The “general good behaviour” acknowledged by the authorities in Estonia, where Martić has been serving his sentence, in the judge’s view “cannot on its own demonstrate rehabilitation of a person convicted for some of the most heinous international crimes.” She stressed that a circumstance particularly aggravating for the petitioner was the fact that “the Estonian authorities reported that Martic ‘considers himself a political prisoner’ and, “[g]enerally speaking, does not want to talk about his crimes, believing that the sentence imposed on him was politically motivated.”

Can anyone blame Martić for holding such opinions?

Judge Santana’s rationale is highly indicative of the legal culture, or perhaps more exactly the mentality, of the Hague Tribunal. She claims that proof of “rehabilitation” is a criterion for early release, but neither in Martić’s case, nor when denying the petition of Gen. Krstić on virtually identical grounds, has she indicated what in her personal view or in light of ICTY’s practice constitutes evidence of rehabilitation. Furthermore, and this is the key point, the judge disenfranchises the petitioner for the act of refusing to internalise the allegations contained in the Prosecution’s charge sheet and rejection of the verdict brought against him. The prisoner is penalised for the outrage of refusing to accept the imputation of guilt, which he must have done from the commencement of the proceedings, otherwise there would have been no need to even hold a trial.

In juridical terms, what right could the court possibly have to require a prisoner to assent to a verdict with which he strongly disagrees, and to make such involuntary assent a condition for receiving a benefit, in this case a shortened prison term? That question is particularly apt since post-trial acceptance of guilt was not a necessary condition for the early release of any other ICTY prisoner before Martić and Krstić filed their petitions.

It should be acknowledged that early release after the completion of two-thirds of the sentence is not normatively prescribed in the Statute of the Hague Tribunal. In all previous cases however it was a customary practice and was being granted routinely. Even in the absence of a formal prescription, the disruption of that practice after numerous precedents had been set presents at least two significant problems of a legal nature.

The first is the violation of the principle of equal treatment, in these instances technically not before the law but certainly in light of established institutional practice. Consistent legal practice gives rise to reasonably entertained expectations. The second issue is the ethnically discriminatory nature of the application of the abrogated principle, targeting members of only one community within a diverse prisoner pool. Ironically, ethnically based discrimination is one of the most frequent themes in Hague Tribunal indictments.

The expectation that in similar circumstances judicial organs will act similarly is fundamental to the proper operation of justice. The guarantee of legal security and predictability in the application of even informal norms is a basic value of civilised law. The alternative is descent into arbitrariness, or anomie as Emile Durkheim has called it.

Judge Graciela Gatti Santana and her colleagues on the ICTY bench apparently do not give a fig for any of those considerations. They are not in the business of administering justice in any recognisable or meaningful from but of advancing the political agenda of the institution from which pays their salaries and benefits.

There appears to be little doubt what that agenda is. Notwithstanding the uncritical and massive political and media support enjoyed by the Hague Tribunal since its inception in the mid-1990s its legacy is questionable and its reputation is tarnished. It is not widely perceived as a place where justice is not only done but also seen to be done. Its rules of evidence and procedure have deviated widely from the Western legal tradition. Under those rules, a multitude of cases stemming from the conflict in the former Yugoslavia have been adjudicated, but few serious legal scholars and observers are convinced that the verdicts reached and sentences imposed pass muster.

The oppressively burdensome standards that the Hague Tribunal is coming up with for what should be routine early release of its prisoners who meet the time served criterion has little to do with concern for the prisoners’ rehabilitation. It has much to do with the pathetic effort of a disgraced Tribunal to if possible secure its own rehabilitation. The method it uses is a cruel cat and mouse game which it plays with its helpless captives. In contemptuous disregard for the ethos of the Western legal tradition, the Hague Tribunal blackmails its prisoners, dangling before them, long after the conclusion of their trials, an uncertain prospect of early freedom in exchange for grovelling enough and violating their moral convictions with sufficient vehemence to retroactively lend credibility to the Tribunal’s defective verdicts by involuntarily altering their non-guilty pleas.

Has a better contextual explanation been written of the functioning of this evil system from the dark ages, to which the Hague Tribunal fully subscribes, than that offered by Michel Foucault in his classical study “Discipline and Punish,” pp. 37-38?

“Confession,” says Foucault, speaking of the primitive practice of what in the Middle Ages passed for “justice,” “constituted so strong a proof that there was scarcely any need to add others, or to enter the difficult and dubious combinatory of clues; the confession, provided it was obtained in the correct manner, almost discharged the prosecution of the obligation to provide further evidence (in any case, the most difficult evidence). Secondly, the only way that this procedure might use all its unequivocal authority, and become a real victory over the accused, the only way in which the truth might exert all its power, was for the criminal to accept responsibility for his own crime and himself sign what had been skilfully and obscurely constructed by the preliminary investigation.”

“It is not enough,” Foucault continues, quoting medieval torturer Ayrault, “that wrong-doers be justly punished. They must if possible judge and condemn themselves.” For all the stated reasons, “the confession had priority over any other kind of evidence. To a certain extent, it transcended all other evidence; an element in the calculation of the truth, it was also the act by which the accused accepted the charge and recognized its truth; it transformed an investigation carried out without him into a voluntary affirmation. Through the confession, the accused himself took part in the ritual of producing penal truth [la vérité pénale].”

There scarcely is any need to point out the degree to which judicial practice in what is commonly known as the dark ages coincides with the contemporary modus operandi of the Hague Tribunal, the pilot programme that was set up to blaze the trail for the global reengineering of jurisprudence. The ignominious International Criminal Court is one of its offshoots, with more undoubtedly to come.

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Em meio à avalanche de coisas dignas de atenção relativas a Jeffrey Epstein, eu queria chamar atenção a uma combinação muito atípica: religiosidade rigorosa e ateísmo militante.

A religiosidade aparece em sua forma mais extravagante com a ideia de Epstein de financiar o desenvolvimento de um porco sem cascos fendidos – um porco kosher geneticamente modificado – para que ele pudesse comer bacon. O fato de se tentar driblar as proibições divinas está longe de ser uma novidade no judaísmo talmúdico (o exemplo mais prosaico é o uso de peruca para cobrir os cabelos femininos). Causa espécie a ideia de um criminoso terrível ser uma pessoa muito religiosa, já que nos defrontamos com a possibilidade de a religião dele se preocupar mais com restrições alimentares do que com restrições morais. Mas isso não deveria ser novidade. Como praticamente ninguém conhece o Talmude sem ser um judeu religioso capaz de ler hebraico, fica a recomendação da leitura do indispensável História judaica, religião judaica, de Israel Shahak, que expõe a imoralidade e o supremacismo racial intrínsecos ao Talmude. Daí não se segue que todo judeu religioso seja uma pessoa ruim, mas sim que, se ele for uma boa pessoa, é por inclinação natural e influência da cultura em que está inserido, não pelo Talmude (cujas dezenas de volumes Epstein exibia em sua estante).

Quanto ao ateísmo militante, foi divulgada uma foto em que constavam juntos, no Lolita Express, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett e Steven Pinker. Ou seja, dois dos “quatro cavaleiros do neoateísmo” (Dawkins, Dennett, Harris e Hitchens, falecido em 2011), mais o judeu ateu de Harvard Steven Pinker, que tece científicas loas ao progresso moral dos nossos tempos. Além disso, foi divulgada a informação de que um clube de ateus que se acham cientistas geniais (do qual participa Sam Harris) contava com a filantropia de Epstein. É Edge.org, o nome do clube. Um religioso financiando ateus que têm certeza de que pessoas que acreditam em Deus são estúpidas? Que estranho!

É possível pensar numa conexão utilitária entre Epstein e o clube de ateus cientificistas. Em um longo artigo para o Unlimited Hangout sobre a adesão do pedófilo às ideias utópicas do Vale do Silício, o jornalista Max Jones destaca o que o clube tinha a oferecer: “Entre [os] cientistas [do clube] estava Craig Venter, um geneticista […] que continua a ser uma figura significativa nos anais do. Venter e Church — o supramencionado diretor do Personal Genome Project de Harvard — deram uma master class do Edge juntos, ensinando a uma nata de oligarcas das Big Techs e figuras da mídia, como Larry Page (fundador do Google) e Elon Musk […]. Sua aula focava num futuro utópico, no qual o homem se funde com máquinas por meio de leituras computadorizadas das sequências genéticas, ‘nas quais o código pode ser replicado de maneira exata, manipulado com liberdade e traduzido de volta para organismos vivos, escrevendo de volta’ — ou, dito de modo mais simples, edição genética.”

Já é bem sabido que Epstein tinha o próprio DNA na mais alta estima, e que queria congelar o próprio cérebro e pênis, então faz sentido que, por razões utilitárias, subsidie um clube de ateus que inclui cientistas com ideias malucas similares às suas. No entanto, devemos outra vez nos perguntar que diabos de religião é essa, tão compatível com crenças materialistas.

Os cristãos creem na ressurreição da carne. Já os judeus, segundo o Chabad, não creem na ressurreição dos corpos, e creem que todas as almas passam por uma purgação dolorosa antes de poderem gozar do prazer espiritual. Grosso modo, é como se todos fossem ao inferno antes de ir para o céu. Assim, se um judeu acreditar nisso porém amar muito a vida corpórea, precisará resolver o problema aqui neste mundo, impedindo a morte. E se Epstein é um judeu que acredita no sobrenatural, é muito plausível que busque o auxílio de algum dos vários demônios em cuja existência os judeus acreditam. Assim teríamos uma explicação para a existência de um misterioso templo em sua ilha – afinal, judeus normais têm sinagoga, não templo.

O templo havia sido esvaziado quando foi fotografado por dentro. Restou pouco mais que uma estante vazia e uma pintura no teto representando o céu com os signos do zodíaco. Ora, a astrologia fazia parte do ocultismo, assim como a cabala, e esse caldo cultural ganhou tração no Ocidente durante a Renascença. Como temos visto nos últimos artigos, essa movimentação ocultista também era usualmente conexa com um proto-sionismo cristão: no mínimo desde o cabalista cristão Guilherme Postel (1510 – 1581), circula na Europa a crença de que os judeus têm um messias secular distinto do messias cristão (Jesus), de modo que eles aguardam um monarca que irá derrubar Constantinopla e devolver-lhes a Terra Santa. De lá, o monarca governará o mundo, o qual terá uma única religião. Vimos também que século XVI essa ideia era divulgada por pessoas ligadas ao rabino português Menasseh Ben Israel. Tanto Cristina da Suécia quanto Vieira acreditavam em tal profecia. O que variava era o monarca: para Cristina, provavelmente foi em algum momento o Príncipe Condé, pois essa era a versão divulgada por La Peyrère; para Antônio Vieira, era João IV de Portugal, o primeiro rei da dinastia Bragança. Ora, Epstein afirmava representar os Rothchild (família judaica que viabilizou o Estado de Israel) e tinha estreitas relações com figuras importantes da entidade sionista.

Uma olhada para o século XVII ajuda a compreender também o próprio Epstein. Na entrevista inédita concedida a Steve Bannon, que foi vazada recentemente, Epstein falava suas concepções da alma. Ele estava certa de que existia alma, mas ela era composta por uma matéria inobservável: era a “matéria escura” do cérebro, que com certeza existe, está no cérebro, mas não pode ser vista nem definida. Chama a atenção, então, que em vez de simplesmente concluir que a alma não é material, Epstein conclui que é uma matéria inobservável. Daí conclui-se que ele era um materialista dogmático. Isso é tanto mais intrigante porque ele se expressa em termos muito dualistas; assim, em vez de dividir o mundo entre extensão e espírito (corpo e alma), ele divide entre matéria visível e matéria invisível. (Na verdade, nem dá para dizer que esse seja um vício original de Epstein, pois o conceito de matéria escura é tomado da física. Há um texto do cosmólogo e historiador da ciência beneditino Stanley Jaki contra um cliente de Epstein chamado Stephen Hawking no qual é criticada a pressuposição dogmática da matéria inobservável. O título é “Evicting the Creator” e está na coletânea Christ and Sience. Agradeço ao leitor da Strategic Culture que enviou à redação a recomendação desse autor.)

A ideia de que a alma é uma coisa material, inclusive composta por átomos, não é invenção de Epstein. É, na verdade, mais velha do que Cristo: consta em De rerum natura, o livro que Cristina da Suécia considerava representar melhor a religião dos filósofos seguida por ela. A obra foi escrita pelo epicurista romano Tito Lucrécio Caro, que viveu no século I a. C. Segundo sua explicação, todo o mundo é composto por átomos em movimento caótico. A ordem visível no mundo não tem sua origem num criador, mas sim nesse eterno movimento: os átomos vão se combinando e como que testando as formas. As que são bem ordenadas subsistem, as que não mal ordenadas perecem. É, a rigor, seleção natural muito antes de Darwin. E como tudo é material, a nossa alma também se dissolve quando a ordem do nosso corpo se rompe em definitivo, levando-nos à morte e à putrefação. Os deuses existem, mas ficam se deleitando entre si e não se importam com os mortais. A religiosidade das pessoas se explica pela ignorância das causas (que são todas naturais). Em suma, De rerum natura e um livro muito alinhado com as crenças cientificistas.

O livro passou boa parte da História ocidental perdido. Foi redescoberto na Renascença (época áurea do ocultismo na Europa ocidental) e há um livro de propaganda cantando a sua redescoberta: A Virada, de Stephen Greenblatt, mais um professor judeu ateu de Harvard. Ele ganhou um Pulitzer pela peça de propaganda em que ensina que Roma é uma fábrica de mentiras.

Diante do quadro geral, que inclui Jeffrey Epstein, vemos que não há uma contradição essencial entre o materialismo e a religiosidade mais supersticiosa. O mais provável é que haja uma escola de pensamento ocidental anti-romana, anti-turca e filossionista que surge na Renascença com o ocultismo (que inclui tanto as escolas da Antiguidade descartadas pela escolástica, como o epicurismo, quanto as diversas cabalas), desenvolve-se com o empirismo no início da modernidade, transforma-se em Iluminismo e depois vai dar no cientificismo que alcança os nossos dias. Entre as figuras mais conhecidas que são importantes nessa história estão o britânico Francis Bacon (que considerava a ciência uma forma de magia), Espinoza (judeu português da Holanda cujo sistema filosófico racionalista bebe do epicurismo, e cujo panteísmo se confunde a tal ponto com ateísmo que acarretou em excomunhão), o britânico David Hume (que tem um ensaio contra a imortalidade da alma no qual revive a ideia epicurista de alma composta por átomos) e o britânico Charles Darwin (que melhor soube aproveitar a premissa epicurista da ordem intrínseca à matéria).

Assim como a escolástica foi um corpo de conhecimento institucionalizado assentado sobre dogmas religiosos, todo o establishment científico atual provavelmente se assenta sobre dogmas coesos de natureza metafísica. A questão é que não estamos informados disto, nem discernimos o seu nexo na História.

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Amid the avalanche of noteworthy things relating to Jeffrey Epstein, I wanted to draw attention to a very atypical combination: rigorous religiosity and militant atheism.

The religiosity appears in its most extravagant form with Epstein’s idea of ​​funding the development of a cloven-hoofed pig – a genetically modified kosher pig – so that he could eat bacon. The attempt to circumvent divine prohibitions is far from exceptional in Talmudic Judaism (the most prosaic example is the use of wigs to cover women’s hair). It causes some amazement, that a terrible criminal could be a very religious person, since we are faced with the possibility that his religion is more concerned with dietary restrictions than with moral restrictions. But this is also old news. Since virtually no one knows the Talmud without being a religious Jew capable of reading Hebrew, I recommend reading the indispensable Jewish History, Jewish Religion, by Israel Shahak, which exposes the immorality and racial supremacism intrinsic to the Talmud. It does not follow from this that every religious Jew is a bad person, but rather that, if he is a good person, it is by natural inclination and influence of the culture in which he is embedded, not by the Talmud (of which Epstein displayed dozens of volumes on his bookshelf).

As for militant atheism, a photo was released showing Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Steven Pinker together in the Lolita Express. That is, two of the “four horsemen of neo-atheism” (Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Hitchens, who died in 2011), plus the Harvard atheist Jew Steven Pinker, who weaves scientific praises to the moral progress of our times. Furthermore, information was released that a club of atheists who consider themselves genius scientists (of which Sam Harris is a member) relied on Epstein’s philanthropy. The club is called Edge.org. A religious person funding atheists who are certain that people who believe in God are stupid? How strange!

It is possible to think of a utilitarian connection between Epstein and the club of scientistic atheists. In a long article for Unlimited Hangout about the pedophile’s adherence to the utopian ideas of Silicon Valley, journalist Max Jones highlights what the club had to offer: “Among these scientists [of the club] was Craig Venter, a grizzly-bearded geneticist […] who remains a significant figure in the annals of the Human Genome Project. Notably, Venter and Church — the aforementioned Harvard PGP [Personal Genome Project] director — once led an ‘Edge master class’ together, lecturing to a who’s who of Big Tech oligarchs and media figures, including Google founder Larry Page and Elon Musk […]. Their lecture focused on a utopian future, one in which man is merged with machines via computer readings of genetic sequences ‘where the code can be replicated exactly, manipulated freely, and translated back into living organisms by writing the other way’ — or more simply, gene editing.”

It is already well known that Epstein held his own DNA in the highest esteem, and that he wanted to freeze his own brain and penis, so it makes sense that, for utilitarian reasons, he subsidizes an atheist club that includes scientists with crazy ideas similar to his own. However, we must once again ask ourselves what kind of religion this is, so compatible with materialistic beliefs.

Christians believe in the resurrection of the flesh. Jews, according to Chabad, do not believe in the resurrection of bodies, and believe that all souls go through a painful purgation before they can enjoy spiritual pleasure. Roughly speaking, it is as if everyone goes to hell before going to heaven. Thus, if a Jew believes in this but loves bodily life very much, he will need to solve the problem here in this world, preventing death. And if Epstein is a Jew who believes in the supernatural, it is very plausible that he seeks the help of one of the various demons in whose existence Jews believe. This would give us an explanation for the existence of a mysterious temple on their island – after all, normal Jews have a synagogue, not a temple.

The temple had been emptied when it was photographed from the inside. Little more than an empty bookcase and a painting on the ceiling representing the sky with the signs of the zodiac remained. Now, astrology was part of occultism, as was Kabbalah, and this cultural mix gained traction in the West during the Renaissance. As we have seen in recent articles, this occult movement was also usually connected with a proto-Christian Zionism: at least since the Christian Kabbalist William Postel (1510 – 1581), the belief has circulated in Europe that the Jews have a secular messiah distinct from the Christian messiah (Jesus), so that they await a monarch who will overthrow Constantinople and return the Holy Land to them. From there, the monarch will rule the world, and there will be a single religion. We have also seen that in the 16th century this idea was disseminated by people connected to the Portuguese rabbi Menasseh Ben Israel. Both Christina of Sweden and Vieira believed in such a prophecy. What varied was the monarch: for Christina, it was probably at some point Prince Condé, as this was the version disseminated by La Peyrère; for Antônio Vieira, it was John IV of Portugal, the first king of the Braganza dynasty. Now, Epstein claimed to represent the Rothschilds (the Jewish family that made the State of Israel possible) and had close ties with important figures in the Zionist entity.

A look at the 17th century also helps to understand Epstein himself. In the unpublished interview given to Steve Bannon, which was recently leaked, Epstein spoke of his conceptions of the soul. He was certain that the soul existed, but it was composed of an unobservable matter: it was the “dark matter” of the brain, which certainly exists, is in the brain, but cannot be seen or defined. It is striking, then, that instead of simply concluding that the soul is not material, Epstein concludes that it is unobservable matter. From this, we must conclude that he was a dogmatic materialist. This is all the more intriguing because he expresses himself in very dualistic terms; thus, instead of dividing the world between extension and spirit (body and soul), he divides it between visible matter and invisible matter. (In fact, it cannot even be said that this is an original vice of Epstein, since the concept of dark matter is taken from physics. There is a text by the Benedictine cosmologist and historian of science Stanley Jaki against an Epstein client named Stephen Hawking in which the dogmatic presupposition of unobservable matter is criticized. The title is “Evicting the Creator” and it is in the collection Christ and Science. I thank the reader of Strategic Culture who sent the recommendation of this author to the editorial staff.)

The idea that the soul is a material thing, even composed of atoms, is not Epstein’s invention. It is, in fact, older than Christ: it appears in De rerum natura, the book that Christina of Sweden considered to best represent the religion of the philosophers, which she followed. The work was written by the Roman Epicurean Titus Lucretius Carus, who lived in the 1st century BC. According to his explanation, the entire world is composed of atoms in chaotic motion. The visible order in the world does not originate from a creator, but rather from this eternal movement: atoms combine and, as it were, test forms. Those that are well-ordered subsist, those that are not well-ordered perish. It is, strictly speaking, natural selection long before Darwin. And since everything is material, our soul also dissolves when the order of our body is definitively broken, leading us to death and putrefaction. The gods exist, but they delight among themselves and do not care about mortals. People’s religiosity is explained by their ignorance of the causes (which are all natural). In short, De rerum natura is a book very much aligned with scientism’s beliefs.

The book spent a good part of Western history unknown. It was rediscovered in the Renaissance (the golden age of occultism in Western Europe) and there is a propaganda book celebrating the fact: The Swerve, by Stephen Greenblatt, yet another Jewish atheist professor from Harvard. He won a Pulitzer Prize for the propaganda piece in which he teaches that Rome is a factory of lies.

Given the overall picture, which includes Jeffrey Epstein, we see that there is no essential contradiction between materialism and the most superstitious religiosity. It is most likely that there is a Western school of thought that is anti-Roman, anti-Turkish, and philo-Zionist, which emerges in the Renaissance with occultism (which includes both the schools of Antiquity discarded by scholasticism, such as Epicureanism, and the various Kabbalahs), develops itself with empiricism in the early modern period, transforms itself into the Enlightenment, and then leads to the scientism that reaches our days. Among the best-known figures who are important in this history are the British Francis Bacon (who considered science a form of magic), Spinoza (a Portuguese Jew from Holland whose rationalist philosophical system draws from Epicureanism, and whose pantheism is so intertwined with atheism that it resulted in his excommunication), the British David Hume (who has an essay against the immortality of the soul in which he revives the Epicurean idea of ​​a soul composed of atoms), and the British Charles Darwin (who best knew how to take advantage of the Epicurean premise of the intrinsic order of matter).

Just as scholasticism was an institutionalized body of knowledge based on religious dogmas, the entire current scientific establishment probably rests on cohesive dogmas of a metaphysical nature. The problem is that we are not informed of this, nor do we discern its connection in history.

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The Bureau of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), part of the Council of Europe (not the European Union), established in October 2025 a platform for Russians in exile called the Russian Democratic Forces, which is intended to represent a new Russian government-in-exile in Europe.

With little media attention, Europe is attempting to elevate the status of the Russian opposition, while openly admitting that the new, so-called opposition lacks the structure and power to make a significant difference. Above all, they admit that the selection of members for this so-called government-in-exile was fundamentally undemocratic.

Following the formation of a so-called representative delegation of Belarusian democratic forces, the Assembly recently decided to appoint a Russian delegation as well – again, without democratic consultation.

Regarding the Russian Democratic Forces, some individuals were invited to participate in hearings organized by Assembly committees. During these hearings, the discussions focused solely on how these figures could help end what they call “Russia’s war of aggression” and on ways to strengthen sanctions against Russia.

The most absurd claim is their desire to guarantee Russians access to free and independent media in order to counter Russian disinformation. This is reminiscent of the sanctions Europe has imposed on Russian media outlets such as RT, Sputnik, Channel One Russia, etc., and, of course, this geopolitical website, the Strategic Culture Foundation, where this article is published. The new media outlets they propose to establish are, naturally, funded by Europe itself – a platform for the so-called Russian government-in-exile.

They will rely exclusively on European disinformation articles opposing the current Russian government. The Russians in exile, out of fear, will write articles filled with anti-Russian propaganda and criticism, afraid of losing their European residence permits or visas should they write anything positive about Russia.

The absurdity of it all, of course, is that Europe itself has been censoring its own media and journalists since new legislation, such as the Digital Services Act (DSA), was approved. Since February 2025, the EU has officially implemented the 2022 law to combat disinformation, particularly what they call “fake news” originating from Russia.

Or take the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA): This law came into effect in May 2024 and supposedly protects media pluralism and ensures that journalists can work without state interference or abuse of legal process. An example of this absurdity – and the exact opposite of what the EMFA advocates – is the case of German journalist Hüseyin Dogru, who has been completely cut off from funding due to European Union sanctions and can no longer provide for his family’s basic needs while living in Germany. He is accused of spreading disinformation about Russia and Israel.

Another initiative is the so-called European Democracy Shield, presented in November 2025. This initiative aims to protect the EU’s democratic information space from foreign interference and information manipulation. Yet this initiative is now being violated by Europe itself. As they state: “The European Democracy Shield initiative aims to strengthen information integrity in Europe by addressing issues such as disinformation and election interference.” But this is exactly the opposite of what the EU is doing by establishing – by Europeans – a so-called Russian government-in-exile, which, by their own admission, may not have been entirely democratic in its establishment or candidate selection.

After all, it is the European Union itself, through the European Commission, that has established an undemocratic Russian government-in-exile, as they themselves admit. The president of the so-called committee that approves the candidates and the structure of the platform is German, and other committee members come from Spain and Cyprus. Not a single Russian sits on the Assembly’s board.

They even prepared a list of so-called “democratic” candidates promoting the new Russian government-in-exile – a list of “Participants of the Russian Democratic Forces” for the platform. This list is approved exclusively by the Bureau of the Assembly – the European Union, or in this case, the European Commission – based on a proposal from the President of the Assembly, who, as mentioned, is a European citizen of German nationality. The list of potential candidates is submitted to the President of the Assembly in consultation with organizations of the Russian Democratic Forces whose members meet the criteria, and is approved by them.

This is, of course, utterly absurd. Imagine the reverse situation: Russia establishes a committee for, say, Dutch or German citizens in exile, appoints them as the opposition government for the Netherlands and/or Germany, and recognizes them as a government-in-exile in Russia. Perhaps Russia should do this as counter-propaganda – to show Europe and make it clear that their behavior is absurd, undemocratic, and, above all, insane. I can just imagine the headlines in European media and the outrage from European politicians and journalists – full of words like “undemocratic and criminal” – if Russia were to do this!

Among the members of the so-called Russian government-in-exile are names such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oligarch once convicted in Russia for fraud and theft, who has already served time in a Russian prison, and chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, who has a far stronger connection to modern-day Azerbaijan or Armenia, having been born and spent his entire childhood in Baku, present-day Azerbaijan.

Another well-known opponent is Vladimir Kara-Murza, who claims to have been poisoned by Putin – similar to the Skripal and Litvinenko cases, or more recently, the allegation that Navalny was poisoned in a Russian prison. He is described as a Russian-British political activist, journalist, author, filmmaker, and a former political prisoner. He is the vice-chairman of Open Russia, an NGO founded by the convicted former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, which promotes civil society and democracy in Russia. In essence, they promote the interests of the US and Europe and advocate for Russia’s subordination to them, running as puppet presidents and governments for the West.

Also part of the new Russian government-in-exile are the deranged members of the provocative punk rock group Pussy Riot, such as Nadya Tolokonnikova. These individuals, eager to attract attention with provocative actions against the Russian Orthodox Church – actions bordering on Satanism (in Europe they are called feminists) – have been condemned in Russia for their behavior. Wikipedia (a Western propaganda tool) even acknowledges that public opinion in Russia is not sympathetic to the band members. They have been labeled an extremist organization in Russia. These are just a few candidates; the rest of those chosen are even less significant or unknown to the Russian people.

Europe is also using ethnic minorities in Russia – such as the Bashkirs, Chuvash, Tatars, Chechens, and many others – to sow division and thus break up Russia, following the example of the Balkanization of the former Yugoslavia. A good example of the propaganda machine targeting ethnic minorities in Russia is the German Center for East European and International Studies, called ZOiS, located in Berlin, Germany.

For instance, a certain PD Dr. Sabine von Löwis has written an article there on “Conflict Dynamics and Border Regions,” which discusses: “The disintegration of the Soviet Union led to the creation of not only the fifteen successor states but also a series of de facto states and peoples.” The goal is likely to drive a wedge between the various groups living in the Russian Federation.

The Russian government-in-exile, as the EU calls it, was established following the example of the Americans, who have appointed puppet presidents and governments worldwide to destabilize the countries they effectively occupy and thus plunder their resources. Russia itself is rich in resources such as gas, oil, and minerals. Some members of Russia’s indigenous peoples, as mentioned above, are also on the list of the so-called Russian government-in-exile. This is a blatant provocation by the EU to drive a wedge between Russians – or at least that is the intent. In recent years, entire sessions have appeared on YouTube proposing to divide Russia along ethnic lines, just as was done with the former Yugoslavia, which is now under the control of Europe and the US.

Recent examples of US regime change, with European assistance, include Syria, Venezuela, the blockade against Cuba, the ongoing destabilization of Greenland, and, of course, the conflict in Ukraine. Russia’s neighbors, such as Georgia, Moldova, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, have also fallen victim to provocations involving regime change and destabilization. This task is now largely reserved for the Europeans – particularly in Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia – with US assistance behind the scenes.

But do not think for a moment that Ukraine will be completely abandoned to Europe. The Americans, together with the Europeans, are eyeing the riches, natural resources, and rare earth metals found primarily in the Donbas, which are now largely in Russian hands. Leaving Ukraine to the Europeans is merely a pretext for so-called peace talks.

Times are growing dangerous these days, with an American administration that talks about peace while simultaneously attacking countries, kidnapping presidents, and throwing them in jail. It supports terrorist leaders in Syria and transfers thousands of ISIS terrorists from the Kurdish-controlled al-Hawl camp to Iraq. What will they do with them? Release them for a potential coming war against Iran – an ally of Russia? Hopefully not, but these days, we cannot be sure. The West is in free fall, without rules or morals.

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A US-funded opposition journalist revealed the Trump DOJ has crafted a secret indictment of Venezuela’s Acting President to “hold it over her head,” and will execute it if she “derails.”

The Trump administration is using a secret indictment to assert leverage over Venezuela’s Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, according to the editor-in-chief of the US government-funded outlet, Armando.info.

“One of the information we manage is that the US is holding an indictment against [Rodriguez] to make it public, just in case she derails,” Valentina Lares Martiz revealed during a February 6, 2026 webinar hosted by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), an outlet also sponsored by the US government.

“Just to hold it over her head?” asked OCCRP deputy editor Julia Wallace.

“Yeah, so, I think she, she and her brother [Jorge Rodríguez], they are in this survival mode, and they will have the capacity to move the pieces, as long as the US backs her up,” Armando.info’s Lares Martiz affirmed.

A January 17, 2026 report by the Associated Press revealed that the Drug Enforcement Administration classified Acting president Rodríguez as a “priority target” almost as soon as she was appointed as Vice President in 2018.

David Smilde, an academic who crusades for regime change in Venezuela at the US government and ExxonMobil-funded Atlantic Council, described the DEA investigation of Rodríguez as “logical.” Smilde explained to the AP that the investigation “gives the U.S. government leverage over her. She may fear that if she does not do as the Trump administration demands, she could end up with an indictment like Maduro.”

During the OCCRP webinar, Steven Dudley of the State Department-funded Insight Crime outlet remarked that “this isn’t without precedent, in terms of [the US government] hanging an indictment over somebody to cajole them into doing their bidding.”

Dudley added, “They don’t need an indictment to cajole people. They have a giant military, and they’ve shown that they’re willing to use that military. That is the biggest stick.”

Confronting “a military aggression unprecedented in our history”

Delcy Rodríguez stepped in as Acting President following a deadly US military raid on Caracas this January 3 which left over 100 dead, including 32 Cuban military officers, and resulted in the kidnapping of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. In an interview with The Atlantic the following day, US President Donald Trump recognized Rodríguez as the new leader, but warned, “if she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.”

Since then, Rodríguez has presided over the passage of an Organic Law on Hydrocarbons which rolled back the socialist reforms the late President Hugo Chavez made to the country’s state oil company, PDVSA. In a January 16 speech to Venezuela’s National Council of Economic Productivity, Rodríguez explained the impetus for the new law:

“Enough time has passed, and Venezuela has been subjected to an unprecedented economic blockade. Well, recently, there has been a military aggression unprecedented in our history, and Venezuela must move forward…without compromising historical principles or compromising Venezuelan dignity. And in that direction, we have made the decision, seeing the successful results of the business models contemplated in the organic anti-blockade law, to take the models that are there and incorporate them into the Organic Law on Hydrocarbons.”

While the law allows Venezuela to draw new revenue streams from an oil sector that has withstood years of punishing sanctions, the Trump administration has assumed custody of Venezuela’s oil revenue at the point of a gun, holding the profits in a private account in Qatar which is not accountable to Congress.

Rodríguez and her older brother, Jorge, have both served in influential roles under Maduro, with Delcy Rodriguez operating as Vice President while overseeing hydrocarbon policy. In 2018, she initiated a project to survive Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy, successfully guiding an Organic Anti-Blockade law through the Constituent Assembly which reformed PDVSA. Since Maduro’s abduction, the Rodríguez siblings have been under mounting pressure to accommodate onerous demands from Washington in order to prevent a destabilizing process of regime change. Looming behind every move is the memory of their father, Jorge Antonio Rodríguez, a leftist militant who was tortured to death in prison by CIA-trained interrogators under a pro-US government in 1976.

In the past, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has used sealed indictments to deny targets of its global lawfare regime the chance to pre-empt investigations. As The Grayzone revealed, Trump’s DOJ secretly indicted Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange on December 21, 2017, just one day after CIA spies learned that Assange was planning to leave the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he had been given sanctuary. On April 11, 2019, British police stormed the embassy on US orders and arrested Assange in a blatant violation of diplomatic sovereignty.

Colombian-born Venezuelan official Alex Saab was also the target of a secret US indictment that was only publicized after he was abducted from an airport in Cape Verde while on an official diplomatic mission in 2020.

During the OCCRP webinar, Armando.info’s Lares Martiz noted that the US slapped sanctions on Delcy Rodríguez in 2017, however, “she doesn’t have an open and formal investigation against her.”

But that could all change, she insisted, if the Acting President defies the Trump administration’s paternalistic instructions.

Pro-transparency Armando.info: based at a Delaware mailbox, funded by Washington

Lares Martiz is in a prime position to know if the US is preparing a secret indictment of Rodriguez, as the publication she edits, Armando.info, functions at the center of a network of US government-funded journalistic outlets which exist to shop dirt on Latin American leaders targeted by Washington.

Though its staff operate from Bogota, Colombia, Armando.info is registered at a post office box in Newark, Delaware, where it is listed by Delaware’s Division of Corporations as “not in good standing.”

One of Armando.info’s top donors is the National Endowment for Democracy, a CIA spin-off which channels US money into opposition parties and media promoting regime change. The outlet is also listed as a member of the “global network” of OCCRP, which has received most of its budget from the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

A 2024-25 Frontline documentary series about Armando.info’s work in Venezuela, “A Dangerous Assignment,” made it clear the outlet’s staff were dedicated anti-Chavista operatives seemingly coordinating their work with the US government. The documentary chronicled the investigation by Lares Martiz and her colleague, Roberto Deniz, of the Colombian-born Venezuelan official Alex Saab, who had spearheaded a food importation program known as CLAP that aimed to prevent widespread hunger amid crushing American sanctions by providing food at below market value to the Venezuelan public. Published by the US government’s Public Broadcasting Service, “A Dangerous Assignment” received “investment support” from Luminate, an NGO founded by US intelligence-adjacent billionaire Pierre Omidyar.

In 2020, Saab was abducted under orders from US authorities following a series of Armando.info reports accusing him of using the CLAP program as an avenue for corruption. He was released from US federal prison through a December 2023 prisoner swap. By this point, Armando.info’s leadership had left Venezuela following lawsuits by Attorney General Tarek William Saab.

In the aftermath of Maduro’s abduction, the Armando.info team is homing in on Saab once again, and apparently working to whip up a dossier on the newly-inaugurated president.

But during the OCCRP webinar, Lares Martiz conceded that she lacks compromising information on Delcy Rodriguez and her brother, Jorge: “they are hardly [in any] cases of corruption that I have written [about], or in Armando.info, or even OCCRP has investigated.”

But she suggested that US intelligence is actively investigating Venezuela’s state oil company in search of dirt on Venezuela’s new president. “Everything is related to corruption in PDVSA,” she remarked. “I think it’s going to be looked up very carefully.”

On January 16, Rodriguez met in her office with CIA Director John Ratcliffe. Later that month, CNN reported that the CIA “is poised to help actively manage the Trump administration’s dealings with Venezuela’s new leadership.”

Original article:  thegrayzone.com

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On 11 June, 2024, a Dutch court sentenced Gideon van Meijeren to two hundred hours of public service, convertible to three months in jail. On 28 and 29 January, a year and a half later, the case will be brought before an Appeals Court in The Hague, the self-styled “City of International Peace and Justice.”

Mr. Van Meijeren is a member of the Dutch parliament for the FvD (Forum for Democracy) party, regarded by the Dutch elite and the MSM as far right. However, this qualification is of course utterly exaggerated. FvD is the only political party in the country that upholds the public interest, since it is based on traditional values and common sense. It rejects wokeism, climate lunacy and LGBTQRSTUVWYYZ-nonsense, while the other parties in the country are WEF-shills.

For what terrible offense was Gideon van Meijeren convicted?

For incitement to violence during a speech he made in 2022, addressing farmers who were protesting against the government’s “climate policy.” According to new cabinet decrees intended to reduce carbon dioxide and nitrogen emissions in agriculture and cattle farming, farmers were being driven into insolvency and bankruptcy. Many would be forced to sell the farms where they had been born and where their families had been living for generations. In other words, government policy was fatal for farming, and thus also for national food production.

Initial government policy goals, as stated by the cabinet then led by Mark Rutte (NATO’s current Gensec), were rather moderate. However the EU “Green” Commissar, Dutch Social Democrat Frans Timmermans, insisted on a more aggressive “climate policy.” Through NGO’s he was subsidizing with tax money taken from EU citizens, he tried to push for stronger measures, after having made backroom deals with the Dutch cabinet. Those NGO’s then initiated legal procedures against the Dutch government in Dutch courts, which duly issued the necessary verdicts calling for stricter nitrogen and carbon dioxide emission standards.

This entire set-up was chosen by the Rutte government in order to be able to say it was just carrying out court orders and thus to avoid public criticism against itself.

The only criticism was coming from the farmers and the FvD party.

In his speech to the farmers, Van Meijeren said: “protest and resistance must always be peaceful and non-violent. I strongly believe it and I say this from my deepest conviction. I believe that non-violent resistance is the most effective and ultimately the most formidable weapon we have against our opponents. In that regard I have also made it very clear that non-violent resistance can still be tough, massive and combative, and so it should be. (…) All of this is absolutely necessary because if not, they will never start moving. If not, they will not move an inch. (…) They need to feel how deep our frustration is, how deep our pain and grief. (…) It is also important to realize that it is not always healthy when in a democracy there is a taboo on violence. The state itself uses violence, even a lot of it whenever it deems necessary. If you are about to be expropriated but refuse to comply, you can be sure that in the end vans will arrive with men carrying batons and wearing helmets, and they will remove you from your land by force. The point of view I am now expressing is entirely compatible with democracy, because for example the United States has the Second Amendment as a safeguard, to ensure that citizens, if absolutely necessary, are capable of defending themselves. And do not forget: even the Dutch Criminal Code makes an exception for the use of violence. Article 141 of the Criminal Code provides that violence is allowed if needed to protect one’s own or someone else’s physical safety, sexual integrity, or property against unlawful attack.”

It was for saying this in public that a member of parliament was sentenced to three months in jail. Only a complete idiot would consider that incitement to violence.

Yet since Gideon van Meijeren is one of the most outspoken and pugnacious FvD members, enjoying an immense popularity among the younger public, his speech caused a lot of concern among the elites. He is an experienced lawyer himself, and has always been very careful in his public statements, but his popularity, eloquence and youthful vigor have made him the target of a sinister lawfare operation.

What can be concluded from this?

The essential and most impartial conclusion is that the judicial system in the Netherlands is not independent. As a matter of fact, it has long been rotten to the core. The state prosecuting office takes its orders from the government and works hand in glove with the judges. There are eleven district courts, four courts of appeal and one supreme court, staffed by 2,600 full-time professional judges as well as hundreds of part time judges, recruited among the 20,000 licensed professional lawyers in the country. Since 2009, more than half of all the professional judges are women! Some of these have no qualms about combing their blond hair, or putting on make-up while the court is in session. Many others, like modern women, wear publicly visible tattoos (like prostitutes of yore), and gold ankle chains under their formal gowns. Although there are no hard data on the political allegiance of judges, it is common knowledge (never refuted) that most are associated with the D’66 party, considered to be “left-liberal.”

Although the elite, state television and the local press outlets never cease to affirm that the Dutch judicial system is independent and exemplary, in fact it is a branch of government made up of kangaroo courts. In other words, there is no real justice in the Netherlands. Sure, there is “Dutch Justice,” but since the adjective “Dutch” cancels the noun that follows it, like “Dutch courage,” it is not actually justice.

It would be an error to assume that the Netherlands is unique in this respect. While the MSM in the EU likes to point out that justice is non-existent in Russia, Africa, Asia and Latin America, essentially anywhere that is not part of the US Empire, this is utterly mendacious.

Lawfare against anyone who dares challenge the state is common all over Europe. The victims include politicians, journalists, comedians, activists, physicians and others. The case against Julian Assange in Sweden and England is famous. Since then there have been cases against politician Dries van Langenhove in Belgium, politician Marine Le Pen and comedian Dieudonné Mbala Mbala in France, activist Rainer Fuellmich and doctor Sukharit Bhakdi in Germany, against the independent news outlet AUF1 in Austria, presidential candidate Călin Georgescu in Romania, and against hundreds of others all over the EU and England. Lawfare is indeed firmly entrenched.

In the US, the situation seems hardly better, as American judges never hesitate to put on trial foreigners who have not committed a single offense on US soil such as Panama’s Noriega and Venezuela’s Maduro. Perhaps it is not so bad after all in the US, because it is juries that decide if a defendant is guilty or innocent, not judges, like in continental Europe, where Roman-inspired codified law reigns supreme.

However, there is only one major conclusion to be drawn from all of the above:

Lady Justice is just a call girl.

And an expensive one at that, since she only takes on exclusive state customers.

Original article: hansvogel.substack.com