Final Word from Tuesday, May 19, 2026

Chief Justice Josef Baxa of the Constitutional Court was groomed for years by the mainstream media for his current position, but he wasn't very kind to them in his address at the Terezín memorial service on Sun. He said that today's era is a painful reminder of the world 90 years ago and of the storm clouds that were gathering. He alluded to Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, spoke of abuses of international law and of aggression, and said that never before have so many deliberate lies been presented as truth. Most surprising was Baxa's assertion that instead of a negative reaction to this, what we hear is an indifferent silence. "Yet whenever words of dissent are replaced by silence," he said, "and whenever comfort prevails over conscience, we lose a piece of what the victims of Terezín bequeathed to us." Baxa seems to be calling on just-minded people, and not only those in the media, to use the full force of their positions to oppose what is happening. That's quite a revolutionary call to action from the nation's top judge. [ Czech Republic United States Russia ]