Authored by Daniel McCarthy via The Epoch Times,

The contrast between America’s great island allies on opposite ends of the world couldn’t be more drastic.

Japan has just given its commonsense conservative prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, a two-thirds supermajority in the national legislature’s Lower House; her Liberal Democratic Party took the highest proportion of seats of any party since World War II.

It’s an enormous vote of confidence not only in Takaichi’s economic agenda but also for her willingness to get tough with China.

Beijing’s mouthpieces have called Takaichi an “evil witch,” with China’s consul general in Osaka threatening, “the dirty neck that sticks itself in must be cut off” in response to Takaichi’s indication Japan would aid Taiwan against an invasion.

Such incendiary language didn’t intimidate Takaichi—nor, it turns out, Japan’s voters.

Yet even as Japan was rallying to its courageous prime minister, China was inflicting humiliation on America’s closest European ally.

Communist authorities in Hong Kong—which was a British colony until 1999—have just sentenced the businessman and free-speech champion Jimmy Lai to 20 years in prison.

The 78-year-old Lai, who holds British citizenship, will die behind bars under that sentence, but China isn’t worried about the UK’s reaction as long as Keir Starmer is prime minister there.

Just last month, the British government approved Beijing’s plans to build a vast new “mega-embassy” in London at the site of the former Royal Mint Court.

CNN notes that Xi Jinping has taken a personal interest in the complex and brought it up in his very first call with the then-newly elected Starmer in 2024.

Not that a larger presence for the People’s Republic of China in the very heart of London is the Labour government’s only recent concession:

Starmer has worked tirelessly to hand over the Chagos Islands, a British territory in the Indian Ocean, to Mauritius, an African island nation with tight connections to China.

This is no act of “decolonization.” The former Chagos natives, who were removed by Britain in the 1960s, don’t support turning the islands over to Mauritius.

The national-security implications of surrendering these small but strategic islets concern not only Britain but the United States as well, which shares a joint military base with the UK on the archipelago’s largest island, Diego Garcia.

While President Donald Trump has made his displeasure with the Mauritius deal known, Starmer has been pressing ahead.

His determination appears to derive from his background as a human-rights lawyer: he takes a nonbinding ruling proffered by the International Court of Justice as holy writ, Britain’s national interest be damned.

Starmer is a globalist at a time when the free world needs leaders who take their nations’ self-responsibilities far more seriously, especially in light of China’s ambitions.

He was swept into office in 2024 on a tide of revulsion against 14 years of leadership by Conservative prime ministers—five in all, most of whom never accepted the spirit of Brexit.

Unlike the overwhelming popular mandate the Japanese have given Takaichi, Starmer won big in Britain with a vote that was more a protest against his opponents than an endorsement of him or his party.

But he got a chance to turn that protest vote into real support—and failed.

At home, Starmer ranks as the least popular leader in the Western world, with disapproval numbers often above 70 percent.

His days are numbered, and his exit is being hastened by revelations in the Epstein files about Peter Mandelson, the man Starmer made ambassador to the United States.

Lord Mandelson stepped down from that post in September, but as further details of his dealings with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein have come to light, the heat on the prime minister who elevated him to Britain’s most sensitive overseas role has become unbearable.

On Monday, the leader of the Labour party in the Scottish parliament, Anas Sarwar, called on Starmer to resign.

He’s not going gracefully, however, and he still has enough backing in the UK parliament to hang on—for the moment.

But no one expects him to last until the next election, which, unfortunately for Britain, doesn’t have to be held before August 2029.

If Labour clings to power for another three years, the country’s woes will only multiply, with or without Starmer at the helm.

In Japan, Takaichi took a risk by calling a snap election just three months after she became prime minister.

Her confidence was justified—and rewarded.

In Britain, Labour knows full well it would get crushed in an early election, with Nigel Farage’s Reform party almost certainly winning power.

But Labour is only delaying the inevitable, and Britain can’t wait.

In a world where nations are aggressively pursuing their interests, the UK suffers under a government the people don’t want but can’t get rid of yet.

Oil supplies via the vital Druzhba pipeline to Slovakia have reportedly been halted, and it’s flows have been suspended since initially being damaged on January 27.

Ukrainian oil and gas company Naftogaz, as well as Ukraine officials, have alleged that Russia attacked its own facility in eastern Ukraine. But the precise facility was previously undisclosed. The new charges of a Russian attack surfaced again as follows:

However, city officials in Brody, where Druzhba meets the Brody-Odesa oil pipeline, warned the population about pollution from burning oil products and Mr Sybiha posted on X a picture of firefighters against a backdrop of flames.

“This is the Druzhba pipeline infrastructure burning after the latest targeted Russian strike on January 27th, which stopped oil transit.”

We know that the Hungarian side is preparing to complain again about problems with Russian oil transit through the Druzhba pipeline.

We can only advise them to approach their “friends” in Moscow with these photos. This is the Druzhba pipeline infrastructure burning after the… pic.twitter.com/Xbn3DGCRkl

— Andrii Sybiha 🇺🇦 (@andrii_sybiha) February 12, 2026

In essence, the Zelensky government is angry that Hungary is not vocally protesting the halt. But Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has suggested Kiev was responsible for blocking electricity supplies for the operation of the pipeline. “

“Why don’t you ask your President when he will allow to restore the electricity supply of the pipeline?” Szijjarto retorted on X.

Hungary continues to rely heavily on Russian oil, even after most European nations have imposed sanctions and sought alternative sources.

Hungary’s Russian energy supply is primarily delivered through Druzhba, which passes through Belarus and Ukraine before reaching Hungary and Slovakia. This is whey every time something happens several European officials are involved in accusations and angry denunciations. 

PM Viktor Orban had in Spring of 2022, near the start of the war, bluntly made clear during an interview with a public national broadcaster that a total Russian oil ban it would be like “dropping a nuclear bomb on the Hungarian economy”.

This isn’t the first time of a forced halt related to airstrikes on the Druzhba pipeline – a similar incident and tit for tat accusations few back in August of last year.

Via Remix News,

Germany is increasingly rebelling against multi-billion-euro data centers, reflecting a trend seen in other Western countries. This time, Groß-Gerau, a town outside of the mega internet hub of Frankfurt, is the latest to reject the construction of a major data center over fears of rising power costs, diminished water and environmental resources, ugly aesthetics, and skepticism over job creation.

Major U.S. investors were behind the push to build the 174-megawatt data center, but local residents and politicians have successfully stopped construction of the five-building complex, which represented €2.5 billion in investment.

The city parliament of the southern Hessian district town officially stopped the construction of the project by Vantage Data Centers. According to German media reports, the assembly rejected the proposal in an 18 to 14 vote, according to Welt newspaper.

The opposition was led by a coalition of mostly left-wing and libertarian parties — the SPD, Greens, FDP, Free Voters, and the Left Party. Meanwhile, the business-friendly CDU and the Free Voters’ Association backed the project.

Although the investors had already purchased the 14-hectare site on the outskirts of the city, residents were not convinced they wanted a data center in their own backyard.

Frankfurt already saturated

Frankfurt, also a major financial hub, has already seen some of the densest clusters of data centers in Europe.

In early 2026, NVIDIA and Deutsche Telekom launched a major industrial AI cloud in the region featuring over 10,000 GPUs, specifically designed for high-performance AI training and inference.

The market in Frankfurt has surpassed 1.3 GW (Gigawatts) of live capacity, with projections to reach 2.5 GW by 2031. Frankfurt is currently on track to overtake London as Europe’s largest data center market within the next five years.

Now, residents are revolting against these trends, with concerns over rising power costs, diminished water and environmental resources, and a lack of jobs generated by the centers.

Skepticism and fear

The town resisted for a variety of reasons, including aesthetics, a lack of jobs, and the sheer scale of the project.

Residents also feared the five massive buildings would tower over and damage the cityscape of the town, which has just over 20,000 inhabitants.

Mayor Jörg Rüddenklau (SPD) also did not believe the promised benefits would materialize, doubting the facility would generate significant new jobs or trade tax revenue.

The same resistance has been seen elsewhere in Germany, and in fact, on a global scale. In Bavaria, local groups have successfully argued that these “server barns” provide almost no local jobs — often fewer than 50 for a multi-billion euro site — while occupying vast amounts of valuable industrial land that could be used for manufacturing and other purposes.

In response to these growing concerns, the German government has introduced some of the world’s strictest regulations to appease locals.

By 2028, new data centers must reuse at least 20 percent of their waste heat, and projects that cannot prove this are being rejected. Starting in 2027, all German data centers must also cover their consumption entirely with renewable energy. This is making it harder for investors to find viable sites, as they now need to be located near major wind or solar sites.

Politicians celebrate

Following the vote in Groß-Gerau, Mayor Rüddenklau emphasized that he refused to be pressured, describing the rejection as a vital course of action. His party’s parliamentary group was even more direct, stating that the “city would not be sold to a major investor.”

The local Green Party also wrote on its website: “Bye-bye data center – billion-dollar ‘deal’ happily falls through.”

The Green Party characterized the decision as a victory for the community, noting that “with the rejection of the project, an oversized, highly problematic urban planning and ecological project is off the table.”

The party stated that the site would now be developed in a “socially acceptable and future-proof” manner.

More resistance on the horizon

Meanwhile, massive data center projects are advancing in other areas of Germany. A massive 300 MW “Mega Campus” is moving forward to serve the Brandenburg Wustermark region outside Berlin, but it has faced intense scrutiny over its impact on the local water table.

Beyond Groß-Gerau, towns like Hanau are seeing organized “neighbor resistance.” Residents are citing a 2025 study showing that some data centers consume as much water as small cities during summer heatwaves to keep servers cool.

Germany’s Energy Efficiency Act (EnEfG), which became strictly binding for many operators in 2025, has only exacerbated the problem. Grid connection requests have skyrocketed near many major cities. In Berlin alone, data center requests have reached nearly 3 GW, far exceeding what the city’s current infrastructure can handle.

Data centers are driving up the price of electricity for households and starving other sectors of power.

A similar conflict is also running in the German town of Maintal, where the U.S. firm “Edgeconnex” is pursuing a 170-megawatt data center.

Critics say these projects are necessary for Germany’s “digital future,” but with AI data centers not only generating very few jobs, but also threatening to wipe out jobs for millions in the future, some local residents are having trouble understanding what they are getting out of these deals besides high energy prices, diminished water supplies, and ugly eyesores on the landscape.

Read more here…

In the latest skirmish in an ongoing clash among pro-Israel and anti-Israel conservatives, the chairman of the White House Religious Liberty Commission announced he’s kicked a Catholic off the panel after she used a hearing to challenge accusations of antisemitism leveled at opponents of Zionism and Israel. However, that Catholic — former Miss California Carrie Prejean Boller — says commission chairman and Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has no authority to terminate her, and that she’s “looking forward to next month’s meeting.” 

On Monday, the commission held a hearing on “Religious Liberty Implications of Anti-Semitism.” Temperatures rose when Boller started challenging witnesses, with much of her questioning aimed at scrutinizing their definitions of antisemitism and, specifically, challenging the idea that opposition to the political ideology of Zionism is inherently antisemitic. Zionism is centered on the establishment and maintenance of a nation-state for Jews. Notably, Zionism is opposed by some Jews, including some Jews living in Israel. 

“I’m a Catholic and Catholics do not embrace Zionism,” Boller told Yeshiva University President Ari Berman. “Just so you know. So are all Catholics antisemites, according to you?” Berman replied, “If someone says they are an anti-Zionist, they are saying about themselves that they have a double-standard, and hypocrisy, and are taking antisemitic positions.” 

Addressing Yitzchok Frankel, a law student who sued the University of California, Boller quoted New York Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro, who said “Zionist ideology falsely claims Israel is the nation-state of Jews everywhere, and that every Jew is…tied to it. This framing is antisemitic at its core…[imposing] collective guilt for actions we neither chose nor control.” The exchange with Frankel ended with him asserting that anti-Zionism is antisemitism. 

Addressing Shabbos Kestenbaum, an activist who in 2024 sued Harvard for allegedly failing to protect students from antisemitism, Boller turned to Israel’s war on Gaza: “Since we’ve mentioned Israel a total of 17 times, are you willing to condemn what Israel has done in Gaza?” The testy exchange prompted Patrick to intervene: 

Catholic activist @CarriePrejean1 confronts Shabbos Kestenbaum with a direct question demanding condemnation of what happened in Gaza after Israel was mentioned 17 times, before Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick steps in to stop her—a bold and courageous moment that reflects her… pic.twitter.com/SDaGvEufrf

— ADI ALARDAH (@alardah91) February 10, 2026

A backlash ensued, with prominent pro-Israel voices across social media condemning Boller’s questioning, and demanding that she resign or be fired. Some questioned Boller’s authority to make blanket statements about what Catholics think about Zionism and Israel. Amid the dust-up, Boller posted an open letter to Kestenbaum, refuting the idea that she derailed the proceedings to focus on Israel, saying that Israel had already figured heavily in the discourse: 

“Nearly every witness framed antisemitism through the lens of Israel and Zionism…Forcing people to affirm Zionism as a condition of participation is not only wrong, it is directly contrary to religious freedom, especially on a body created to protect conscience. As a Catholic, I have both a constitutional right and a God-given freedom of religion and conscience not to endorse a political ideology or government that is carrying out mass civilian killing and starvation.” 

On Wednesday, commission chair Patrick used social media to announce that Boller had been removed. 

“No member of the commission has the right to hijack a hearing for their own personal and political agenda on any issue. This is clearly, without question, what happened Monday in our hearing on antisemitism in America. This was my decision.”

Boller quickly replied, saying Patrick lacks authority to kick her off the commission, and saying it was actually the Zionists who “hijacked” the proceedings: 

“As the name states, this is President Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission, not yours. You did not appoint me to the Commission, and you lack authority to remove me from it. This is a gross overstepping of your role and leads me to believe you are acting in alignment with a Zionist political framework that hijacked the hearing, rather than in defense of religious liberty…I refuse to bend the knee to Israel. I am no slave to a foreign nation, but to Christ our King…Zionist supremacy has no place on an American Religious Liberty commission.” 

“I’m a Catholic, and Catholics do not embrace Zionism, just so you know. So are all Catholics anti-Semites according to you?”

Incredible exchange today between Carrie Prejean Boller and a group of Jewish Zionists at the White House’s Religious Liberty Commission.

Texas Lt. Gov.… pic.twitter.com/kf4sYclPL8

— Chris Menahan 🇺🇸 (@infolibnews) February 9, 2026

Boller has a conservative pedigree, having gained notoriety when she told 2009 Miss USA pageant judge Perez Hilton that “marriage should be between a man and a woman.” Boller has said the interaction cost her the crown. She wrote a book about the controversy, and the phenomenon of conservative women being targeted by liberal media. 

The White House Religious Liberty Commission was created by President Trump in on May 1, 2025, and charged with “recommending steps to secure domestic religious liberty and identifying opportunities to further the cause of religious liberty around the world.” Dr. Ben Carson is the vice chair, and panel members include the likes of Franklin Graham, “Dr. Phil” McGraw and TV-preacher Paula White, whose over-the-top antics at a 2020 prayer-rally for Trump went viral: 

This is the White House’s spiritual adviser, Christian Zionist Paula White.

People like her give Christianity a bad rep pic.twitter.com/slcTCEbUMJ

— Lord King Figaro (@Figgythebestcat) February 11, 2026

The fight over the definition of antisemitism comes amid an intensifying war within the Republican Party and the US right over the extent to which America should support Israel, with older Republicans more likely to view support for Israel as a core conservative value, while Republicans under 50 are increasingly prone to conclude that support for Israel comes at a staggering, multifaceted price, and defies George Washington’s admonition against “passionate attachments” to “particular nations.” 

Authored by Charles Fitzgerald via GeekWire.com,

Consider a successful mid-sized American city. One with decades of population growth. Median household incomes on par with or exceeding New York City. A bustling port in a prime location. Bold civic architecture. A vibrant arts and cultural scene. And home to some of the world’s biggest and most valuable companies.

That could be Seattle. It also describes Cleveland about 75 years ago.

In the 1950s, Cleveland was an epicenter for the era’s “Big Tech.” Industrial giants like Standard Oil, Republic Steel, and Sherwin Williams were all founded in Cleveland. Like engineering outposts in Seattle, other leading companies including General Motors, Westinghouse, and U.S. Steel were well represented locally. 

Yet Cleveland’s success unraveled remarkably quickly.

Within 20 years, when the Cuyahoga River caught fire in 1969, the city was seared into history as “the mistake on the lake.” The population has declined by 60% since 1950 (and is still shrinking). Cleveland has gone from the seventh largest U.S. city in the country to the 56th. Median household incomes are now less than half the national average — and less than 40% of the Seattle area. 

Today in Seattle tech circles there is great trepidation about the region’s next act. Seattle is not punching above its weight in the AI era the way we did in the software era. We might not even be punching our weight.

Entrepreneurs, executives, investors, and technologists are departing, either because they don’t think they can be competitive here in the white-hot AI market and/or are concerned about a deteriorating business environment. And the exodus appears to be accelerating.

You might take solace that our little corner of the country hosts two of the world’s five biggest companies (which is a little crazy). But it is easy to believe both Amazon and Microsoft are past peak employee count, as they become more capital-intensive and lean into AI-driven productivity. Other local tech companies and engineering centers are also shrinking, while new job listings have plummeted. 

While the tech sector confronts existential dread, the political class in Seattle and Washington state seems oblivious. They don’t have much to say about creating jobs or nurturing industries of the future (or even of the present). Revenue is their focus above all else, with considerably less emphasis on how our taxes translate into efficient and effective provision of government services.

Charles Fitzgerald at the GeekWire Cloud Summit in 2019. (GeekWire File Photo / Kevin Lisota)

The traditional Seattle civic partnership between business and government has frayed. Few lessons have been learned from Boeing’s slow-motion migration out of the Seattle area (Washington is now home to just over a third of Boeing employees, and due to decrease further).

Relations between the tech industry and government are rocky, with the industry seen almost exclusively as a bottomless source of revenue. It would be shocking — but not surprising — to one day learn Amazon and/or Microsoft are moving their headquarters out of the state. (Bellevue already looks like Amazon’s HQ1 in all but name).

The tech boom has been an immense boon for Seattle, as the city attracted talent from all over the world.

Seattle’s population has grown by almost 40% in the 21st century, and the City of Seattle rode that tailwind. The city’s inflation-adjusted budget grew over three times faster than the population over the same period. 

That growth raises some obvious questions.

Are city services three times better? How long can government spending keep outgrowing the population? What happens if population growth slows — or even reverses?

Meanwhile, city issues loom large in the desirability of doing business in Seattle.

Downtown is barren, with record vacancies. Public safety, housing and homelessness are perennial hot topics, but progress is scarcer. After the recent election, we’re apparently going to take another shot at those persistent problems with progressive panaceas that have seen limited success, both locally and elsewhere. 

Amazon’s Spheres, with the Space Needle in the background. (GeekWire File Photo / Kurt Schlosser)

Completely missing from any discussion is the crisis in our schools, where the majority of fourth and eighth graders in Seattle are not proficient in reading or math.

Education is one of the most effective solutions to many social ailments — and a mandatory prerequisite for an advanced civilization — yet we’ve seemingly given up.

Which brings us back to Cleveland.

When its fortunes began to shift, Cleveland’s politicians made a bad situation worse. A confrontational, short-term posture from government made it easy for companies to put Cleveland plants at the top of their closure lists. Contrast that with another Rust Belt city, Pittsburgh, where politicians and business worked together to accept and manage the inevitable transition. They defined the post-industrial playbook for cities — one Cleveland belatedly adopted. 

Seattle has always been a lucky city. Prosperity has often come from unexpected sources. The Alaska gold rush was, quite literally, a gold rush. Bill #1 (Boeing) made Seattle synonymous with aerospace. Proximity to Alaska gave us a competitive container port, while rival ports like Portland and San Francisco dried up. Bill #2 (Gates) catalyzed a software industry in Seattle (and beyond). Jeff (Bezos) famously drove to Seattle in his Chevy Blazer, where he pioneered e-commerce and created a million and a half jobs along the way.

Maybe the luck holds and the next big thing just shows up. It could be space, energy, robotics, biotech or something unimaginable today. Hopefully we get lucky again, but hope, as they say, is not a strategy. 

So I’ll offer a catchphrase as you think about Seattle’s next act: Don’t be Cleveland.

(I want to be very clear that I mean no offense to Cleveland. The people there today are still digging out of a hole created decades ago. Let’s learn from them and not repeat the errors of their forebears.)

Raw sewage from a 60-year-old pipe has dumped roughly 300 million gallons of waste into the Potomac River in what is possibly the largest sewage overflow in U.S. history, according to environmental advocates and regional officials.

DC Water said last week that a section of its sewer system known as the Potomac Interceptor collapsed along the Clara Barton Parkway on Jan. 19, triggering a massive discharge of untreated wastewater into the river.

In a press release, the utility estimated that approximately 243 million gallons of wastewater had overflowed from the collapse site. On Monday, DC Water said there had been an additional “significant overflow” on Sunday during a period of high river flow, noting that some bypass pumps were not in service at the time.

The Potomac Riverkeeper Network, a local environmental advocacy organization, claimed in a Facebook post Wednesday that the total volume of sewage released had surpassed 300 million gallons.

An analysis of the water by the University of Maryland (UMD) and the Riverkeepers found “high levels of fecal-related bacteria and disease-causing pathogens” – which they say raise “urgent public health concerns.” 

“Raw sewage from a 60-year-old pipe has vomited roughly 300 million gallons into the Potomac River and is still not fully contained,” said PRKN President Betsy Nicholas. 

Dean Naujoks, who holds the title of Potomac Riverkeeper, told The Baltimore Sun that the only comparable sewage spill he could recall occurred in 2017 along the U.S.-Mexico border, when roughly 230 million gallons of wastewater were released.

“The Potomac River is a shared natural treasure, and any event that threatens its health understandably causes concern, frustration, and a sense of loss,” DC Water CEO David L. Gadis said in an open letter released Wednesday. “Those feelings are not only valid — but they are also shared by all of us at DC Water.”

Environmental experts say the scale of the spill is difficult to contextualize but extraordinary by regional standards.

Gussie Maguire, a Maryland staff scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, compared the volume released in Washington to annual sewage overflow totals in Baltimore.

“The way that I put it into perspective for myself and for people before is I compared it to annual sewage overflow amounts,” Maguire told The Hill in a Thursday interview. “You don’t really necessarily want to think about it, but there are a lot of sewage overflows going on in any particular year.”

Maguire said Baltimore’s largest recent annual sewage overflow occurred in 2018, when the city released approximately 250 to 260 million gallons over the course of the entire year — a volume comparable to the Potomac spill from a single infrastructure failure.

She also noted that the section of sewer that collapsed had already been slated for upgrades, with DC Water having allocated more than $600 million for planned improvements.

While the spill itself was a single incident, Maguire said the underlying vulnerabilities that caused it are widespread.

“The sewage spill was a single event, but the circumstances that led to it are not unique,” she said, adding that sustained funding for infrastructure upgrades is “really, really important, so that we don’t see this sort of large-scale spill become a regular occurrence.”

The environmental consequences have been immediate. Researchers from the University of Maryland reported that E. coli bacteria levels at a Potomac River monitoring site were 10,000 times above Environmental Protection Agency recreational standards two days after the Jan. 19 rupture. A week later, those levels had fallen but remained 2,500 times above federal guidelines.

Officials have warned that monitoring and cleanup efforts will continue as repairs to the damaged sewer infrastructure move forward.

Authored by Stacy Robinson via The Epoch Times,

A federal judge in Washington has ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of Venezuelans whom he said should receive a hearing after their deportation under the Alien Enemies Act.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg wrote in his Feb. 12 ruling that the government must parole those deportees into U.S. custody if they present themselves at a port of entry and provide them due process to contest their deportation.

Boasberg said his ruling was intended to mirror a Supreme Court ruling from last year, which upheld U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis’s order that the government “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

The government will also have to pay for the flights and provide a boarding letter to the deportees, but that only applies to those flying in from a third country, not Venezuela itself.

The return might be short-lived, Boasberg said, since anyone who is flown back or paroled into the country will be detained by U.S. immigration officials and held in custody while their case plays out.

They also face being deported again at the end of the proceedings.

An attorney for the plaintiffs previously told the judge that some of his clients were willing to take that risk.

The ruling is the latest chapter for the deportees, who were sent to El Salvador’s CECOT terrorism confinement center last year. They were subsequently released into Venezuela.

Boasberg ruled in December that the government needed to give the Venezuelans an opportunity to contest their deportation. When the Justice Department objected to that ruling, the judge ordered a hearing to discuss ways the government could provide due process.

“I never said, and the plaintiffs never said, they were not deportable,” Boasberg remarked at that hearing on Feb. 9.

The question, he told the court, was whether the plaintiffs were deportable under the Alien Enemies Act, and if they had been given due process.

The Justice Department argued, in a court filing ahead of the hearing, that Boasberg lacked jurisdiction over the detainees since they had been turned over to the El Salvadoran government and released into Venezuela.

The DOJ also said remote hearings were infeasible, since the U.S. government would have no way of combating perjury or testing the identity of witnesses in such proceedings.

The volatile political situation might also complicate matters, the DOJ argued.

Responding to those concerns, Boasberg said in his order that plaintiffs could file supplemental challenges to their deportation—along with proof that they were not Tren de Aragua members—and he would decide whether to require such hearings, and their logistics, later.

He also punted on the jurisdiction question, saying the government can argue against any upcoming plaintiff filings.

An attorney for the plaintiffs said some of his clients had no association with Tren de Aragua and would be able to prove it if given a chance.

He and his team had identified a “handful” of plaintiffs who managed to leave Venezuela, and were willing to return to the United States for in-person hearings, though he didn’t want to specify in open court where they were living.

Boasberg has ordered him to reveal those locations to the court, but under sealed documents.

What do Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Susan Rice, Jeffrey Epstein, the Rothschilds, and Goldman Sachs all have in common?

Kathy Ruemmler… Goldman’s (soon to be former) top lawyer, after a batch of documents released by Congress and the DOJ revealed she was thick as thieves with Epstein.

Ruemmler rose to the top ranks of Wall Street, becoming a key advisor to Goldman CEO David Solomon after serving as White House counsel to former President Barack Obama. 

While she allegedly told the bank that her relationship with Epstein was limited and “purely professional,” turns out she lied (or they knew, which makes it worse). It would later become public that she not only met with Epstein dozens of times and exchanged friendly emails for years, she was listed as an executor of Epstein’s will as recently as Jan. 18, 2019 – which had been removed before he died in prison on Aug. 10 of that year. 

What’s more, the Washington Free Beacon reported late last month that Epstein showered her with luxury gifts – including a $9,400 Hermes handbag, a Hermes-branded Apple watch, and a spa treatment package at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington DC. 

She also denied having ever helped Epstein with PR, telling the outlet “I did not advocate on his behalf to any third party—not to a court, not to the press, not to the government.”

Turns out that was a total lie. 

On Friday, the DOJ released over 3 million pages of Epstein documents, including one in which Ruemmler was helping draft statements to help Epstein counter claims that he got a “sweetheart deal” when he was allowed to plead guilty to minor charges in a 2007-2008 sex trafficking case involving dozens of underage girls. 

Just over three weeks ago, Goldman vehemently denied that that plans were afoot to fire Ruemmler. Turns out, not so much. 

Kathy’s Out

On Thursday, the Financial Times reported that Ruemmler will resign on June 30 – (aka they fired her and let her resign), saying in a statement to the outlet “I made the determination that the media attention on me, relating to my prior work as a defence attorney, was becoming a distraction.”

Her decision comes after documents showed she held extensive discussions with Epstein between 2014 and 2019, long after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to state charges of soliciting prostitution from a minor. Ruemmler joined Goldman in 2020.

Goldman chief executive David Solomon has stood by Ruemmler since her close association with Epstein first emerged in 2023. He said in a statement on Thursday that she “will be missed”. -FT

Ruemmler has said she regrets ever knowing Epstein and that she didn’t know about his criminal activities, which we’re sure isn’t just because she got caught. 

Interestingly, Ruemmler once arranged an advantageous settlement for the Rothschild family with the Obama DOJ, for which she was reportedly paid $10 million and Epstein was paid $25 million. 

Obama’s lawyer Kathy Ruemmler and her buddy Epstein helped to arrange an extremely advantageous settlement for the Rothschilds with the Obama DoJ. For this, Kathy was allegedly paid USD 10 million and Epstein was paid USD 25 million.

The Rothschilds business was introduced to… https://t.co/P66nd9lplS pic.twitter.com/pwRABR3sVV

— Svetlana Lokhova (@RealSLokhova) February 12, 2026

Developing…

Silver’s explosive January rally, which briefly pushed futures prices above $120 per ounce, has since fizzled, with futures trading around $82 as of Thursday morning. Even so, the frenzy has sparked a sharp increase in scrap silver volumes flowing to refiners, as people rush to sell silver coins, sterling dinner sets, candlesticks, and other heirlooms inherited from grandparents or Boomer parents.

Bloomberg reports coin and jewelry shops have seen what they describe as a “rush of customers” seeking to dispose of collectibles, silverware, and family treasures during the historic surge in silver prices last month.

“Everyone’s grandma is selling their chandelier, forks, and knives — anything that’s made of sterling silver to utilize the silver prices,” said Gene Furman, owner of King Gold & Pawn and Empire Gold Buyers, which has locations across the New York City metro area.

“The average check I’m writing is probably in the $8,000 to $10,000 range,” Gary Tancer, owner of Coin & Jewelry Gallery of Boca Raton, told the outlet. He noted consumers are “coming in droves and droves.”

Google Search trends show that as silver prices soared, so did online interest from people searching “sell my silver.”

A truly explosive surge…

Related top search queries included:

The influx of individuals deciding to sell their silver heirlooms has triggered a surge of silver scrap entering the market.

Heraeus Precious Metals, one of the world’s largest precious metals refiners, is now facing a backlog, said Dominik Sperzel, head of trading for the German firm.

“When you place the silver order today, it cannot just take a few weeks,” Sperzel said. “We’re already talking about months.”

Jack Farley of Monetary Matters spoke with Milton Berg of MB Advisors Institutional Research about why Berg is bearish on silver at this point. His view is that refineries are being overwhelmed with scrap silver, with inflows even heavier than during the 2011 speculative peak.

Why @BergMilton is bearish silver: refineries are OVERWHELMED with silver scrap, EVEN MORE than in 2011 (prior speculative peak).

Well sourced from “largest smelter in New York”

Apple🔊https://t.co/bNqmCOVqMV
Spotify📽️https://t.co/mnN6Dn02hi pic.twitter.com/ng04tObLMG

— Jack Farley (@JackFarley96) February 11, 2026

Listen to the full Farley-Berg conversation here.

Then again, the silver-squeeze comes to China…

By Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com,

Japan’s Inpex expects an LNG supply shortfall in the Pacific coastal region, including Asia, in 2035, as demand will nearly double from current levels, the oil and gas major said in its 2025 earnings report on Thursday. 

Global LNG demand is expected to increase to about 700 million tons per year in 2035, up from the current level of around 400 million tons annually, according to the Japanese company, which operates the Ichthys LNG project offshore Western Australia.  

“Demand will be concentrated in the Asia–Oceania region, accounting for about 60% of the total,” Inpex said in the outlook to 2035.  

“Supply shortfall is expected in the Pacific coastal region, including Asia,” the company noted in its LNG Supply and Demand Outlook in the report. 

While other regions look sufficiently supplied, the Pacific coastal region could see a supply shortfall of 231 million tons per year in 2035, according to Inpex. 

Despite warnings of a near-term global LNG glut, top exporters in the Middle East, including Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), see strong demand going forward and flag insufficient investment in supply in the medium to long term.

The UAE is growing its LNG exports to meet surging global demand that will outpace investment in supply, Energy Minister Suhail al Mazrouei told Reuters at the end of last year.

“I agree with his excellency, Minister of Qatar, that the demand is going to be much, much more than the projects that we are seeing,” the UAE official added. 

Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, who is QatarEnergy’s CEO as well as the Minister of State for Energy Affairs of Qatar, said in December “I have no worry at all about demand in the future.”

“I have a worry about the lack of investment for additional supply in the future, which will cause prices to spike,” Al-Kaabi added.