The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 made several things about the American political system abundantly clear.

First, there was a remarkable consensus between the two political parties. While Americans, eager to individualise the follies of empire, typically blame George W Bush for the devastation visited upon Iraq, it was Democrat Joe Biden who, as then head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, agitated for the invasion and Democrat Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker who refused to bring articles of impeachment against Bush for falsifying reasons for the invasion.

It was also Democratic President Bill Clinton who, before Bush, had enforced genocidal sanctions on Iraq that led to the deaths of countless children. 

Members of Congress inveighing against online “harm”; a nervous tech executive defending his company’s policies; thinly veiled threats about regulatory changes. If you tuned into C-SPAN last Thursday, you’d be forgiven for thinking you were looking at the rerun of a pre-2022 hearing, when Democrats used their control of Congress to haul Facebook personnel before them to harangue. Almost, but not quite.

Instead, this particular grilling was made possible by a Republican-controlled House of Representatives, and instead of Facebook, it was TikTok CEO Shou Chew in the firing line. And as a result, there’s now a US ban on TikTok being seriously discussed in the corridors of power.

Over five hours long, the hearing was at times a darkly hilarious reminder that the lawmakers most gung ho about clamping down on tech platforms are not exactly tech-savvy. Rep. Richard Hudson and Chew had an extended back and forth as the GOP House member demanded to know if TikTok “access[es] the home WiFi network.” “How do you determine what age they are then?” Rep. Earl “Buddy” Carter asked, before being told that, like many social media platforms, users are asked their age. Meanwhile, Rep. Dan Crenshaw seemed to think Chew was a Chinese citizen, despite the fact that he’d mentioned four times earlier that he hails from and lives in Singapore.

In this video, we discuss the huge news that the new Toyota CEO just confirmed. The company are still focused on diversification. Instead of going full EV, Toyota will continue to offer a variety of powertrains, including hybrids, plug-ins, hydrogen fuel cells, and some battery-electric models. We explore the reasons behind this strategy, the challenges and opportunities it faces, and the reactions from investors, customers, and competitors. Is Toyota making a smart move or falling behind in the EV race? Watch the video to find out!

Hundreds of worshippers gathered at a Kyiv monastery on Wednesday for what could be the last service their branch of the Orthodox Church holds there because it faces eviction following allegations it has links to Moscow.

Against the backdrop of Russia's war on Ukraine, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) has been ordered by the government to leave the vast 980-year old Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery complex by the end of Wednesday.

The government says the UOC broke tenancy agreements and constructed buildings illegally. The UOC denies this and says the government has not shown it any documents proving this.

At a House Armed Services Commitee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) spoke about drag queen story hours on military bases.

A new bill in Congress would end U.S. military presence in Somalia. It’s a nice idea but don’t get too excited because Congress voted down a bill to end military presence in Syria earlier this month. The Somalia War Powers Resolution directs President Biden to remove armed forces from Somalia. The President escalated military presence there in May of 2022 with an additional 500 troops. The U.S. says it is fighting al-Shabaab in Somalia, a group that was formed when the U.S. backed an invasion on Somalia in 2006. This is truly the definition of vicious circle.

General Guglielmo Luigi Miglietta, Commander of Allied Joint Force Command Brunssum, made a two-day trip to Latvia where he visited Headquarters Multinational Division North and enhanced Forward Presence Battlegroup Latvia, 20th and 21st March 2023.

He began his tour at HQ MND-N, located at the Ādaži military camp in the town of Pierīga. After a warm welcome from HQ MND-N Commander, Major General Flemming Mathiasen, Gen. Miglietta addressed a gathering of division staff officers….

Pilots assigned to Carrier Air Wing 7, the offensive air and strike component of Carrier Strike Group 10 and the George H.W. Bush CSG, participated in a Tactical Leadership Program at Albacete Air Base, Spain, Feb. 13 – March 3, 2023.

TLP is a joint exercise designed to teach NATO partner aircrews to train and operate together.

…“The more frequently we integrate with our NATO allies during international exercises, the better prepared we will be when required to face NATO adversaries in a potential warfare scenario.”

Germany delivered the 18 advanced main battle tanks after Ukrainian crews were trained to operate them, British broadcaster the BBC reported.

Eighteen is four more than previously agreed, according to news outlets.

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said the Leopards 2s “have made it into the hands of our Ukrainian friends as promised and on time.”

He added he was certain the Leopard 2s could “make a decisive contribution” on the frontlines of Ukraine’s war against the Russian assault.

NATO countries are now de facto fighting on the side of Kiev and have become “deeply” drawn into the Ukrainian conflict, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday.  

“Once again, we drew attention to the subversive line of the NATO countries, which have been drawn into the conflict for a long time and are getting drawn into it deeper… and in fact they are fighting on the side of the Kiev regime,” Lavrov said during a press conference following talks with his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amirabdollahian in Moscow.

Pope Francis will spend several days at Rome’s Gemelli hospital after tests found a respiratory infection, the Vatican said on Wednesday afternoon. All of his events through Friday have been canceled, and it remains unclear whether the pontiff will be able to keep his Holy Week and Easter commitments as well.

“In recent days Pope Francis has complained of some breathing difficulties,” Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a statement. The tests ruled out Covid-19 but found a “respiratory infection,” Bruni added, which will “require a few days of appropriate medical therapy.”

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has reportedly lamented that he hasn’t had any direct talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping since Russia’s military offensive against Kiev began last year, and he wants to rectify the situation.

“We are ready to see him here,” Zelensky said in an interview with the Associated Press published on Wednesday. “I want to speak with him. I had contact with him before full-scale war, but during all this year, more than one year, I didn’t have.”

Beijing last month unveiled a 12-point roadmap for ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict, calling for a cease-fire and working toward a “sustainable European security architecture” rather than imposing sanctions and applying “maximum pressure” to force a solution. China has tried to play a “constructive role” in the crisis, resisting US pressure to condemn Russia and join in the West’s anti-Russia sanctions. US officials have dismissed the Chinese proposal as an offer that would help only Moscow.

US President Joe Biden has claimed that the decision by the UK’s main domestic security service to raise the terrorism threat level in Northern Ireland will not prevent him from visiting the region.

“No. They can’t keep me out,” Biden said on Tuesday when asked if the move by MI5 would affect his plans to travel to Northern Ireland next month.

The White House has yet to officially confirm the US leader’s planned trip to Belfast on the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which was signed on April 10, 1998.

However, Biden is reportedly expected to visit Northern Ireland for the occasion together with former President Bill Clinton, who brokered the landmark deal.

After Robert E. Lee’s surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, an army for which food, boots, medical supplies, and replacements for casualties could no longer be supplied by the small population of the agricultural South, the Reconstruction Era set in. Reconstruction lasted 12 years.  In history books written by northern propagandists, Reconstruction was a period when “attempts were made to redress the inequities of slavery and its political, social, and economic legacy and to solve the problems for the readmission of the states that seceded.”

So much has been falsified.  Abraham Lincoln stressed over and over and over that his war was not about slavery, but about saving the Empire, which he called “saving the Union.”   The letters and diaries from soldiers on both sides of the conflict verify that no one was fighting for or against slavery.  Indeed, Lincoln was warned by his generals never to say the invasion of the South was to free the slaves or the Union Army would desert.  

The agricultural South seceded because the northern states intended to finance their industrial development with tariffs at the expense of the South.  This history is throughly documented, but it doesn’t provide the necessary excuse for black victimhood.  The blacks learned from the Jewish lobbies  that victimhood is both profitable and protection from being held accountable. American liberals are great champions of black victimhood, and so they have rewritten history, including the history of Reconstruction.

There are wars that are fought with weapons, there are wars that are fought with weapons and the media. Since February 24 last year, the West has declared an all-out media war against Russia. Any free voice is repressed, any dissent is ridiculed. In Europe and in the United States, it is almost forbidden not to be against Putin.

For over a year now, the global information machine has been building a unified narrative, identifying the conflict between Russia and Ukraine as a war between good and evil. You can’t have doubts, because doubts are not allowed. Russia is evil and must be destroyed. Amen.

In this asymmetric war, among the weapons available to the West, the mainstream media is the most lethal device: because it is a tool that manipulates consciences, changes the narrative, erases history and rewrites it. Ten years of repression of the pro-Russian population of Donbass by the Kiev government have literally been eroded. It shouldn’t be talked about. Those events never happened and the nearly forty thousand victims of that civil war no longer belong to history.

In three days the federal reserve begins rolling out the new US digital dollar rollout program. The program will slowly unfold until widespread adoption in July. Cash dollars are already being phased out at government offices, parks and museums. This is the biggest change to the US dollar since it was removed from the gold standard in the 1970's.

In a TikTok video, there appears to be a woman shopping at Walmart in Portland, Oregon, revealing her shock at the empty shelves. Walmart, Walgreens, and other large chain stores are shutting down in high-crime areas.

At a Tuesday Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas agreed with President Joe Biden's stance on banning assault weapons in the U.S. but could not provide a definition of the term.

Kennedy asked Mayorkas what an assault weapon is, and Myorkas responded with the example of an AK-47.

When pressed by Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana to clarify what an assault weapon is aside from pointing to a specific weapon, Mayorkas said that when he was a federal prosecutor, most law enforcement leaders he worked with supported the assault weapons ban.

Our Rights DC and the Trans Radical Activist Network have been organizing a "Trans Day of Vengeance" protest in Washington, DC scheduled for April 1.

This event has been publicized on social media despite the deadly vengeance carried out by a trans person just days earlier. According to their website, the event is meant to be a show of unity and to advocate for the rights of trans individuals. The protest is scheduled to occur outside the Supreme Court, which recently ruled in favor of employment protections for trans people in the Bostock case. This protest is about unity, not inciting violence. TRAN does not encourage violence and it is not welcome at this event," the site says.

On Wednesday morning, the press secretary of Arizona Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs resigned following her suggestion of gun violence against "transphobes" on Twitter.

Hours prior, 28-year-old Audrey Hale had opened fire at the Covenant School in Nashville, killing three children and three adults. Josselyn Berry, the now-former press secretary, had shared a GIF of Gena Rowlands pointing two revolvers in a scene from the 1980 movie "Gloria," along with the caption “Us when we see transphobes.”

A train hauling ethanol derailed Thursday morning in Raymond, Minnesota, igniting several rail cars and forcing nearby residents to evacuate, officials said.

The derailment happened around 1 a.m., the Raymond Fire Department posted on Facebook.

The train was carrying mixed freight, including ethanol and corn syrup, said Lena Kent, general director of public affairs for BNSF Railway.

Ethanol is a highly flammable chemical. Exposure can lead to coughing, dizziness, the feeling of burning eyes, drowsiness and unconsciousness.

As with all military conflicts, it is rarely the case that the outside observer knows the “whole story.” Regarding Russia and Ukraine, the story is more complicated than news-cycle soundbites can give justice to.

The recent Eastern European conflict has many layers to it, and one of those might the West’s hatred of traditional Biblical morality, which is manifesting itself in a knee-jerk reactionary position against Russia and for Ukraine. A tweet by the top spy in the UK alleges that LGBT issues are at the heart of the matter, and, a recent sermon by the Patriarch of Moscow makes essentially the same claim, only from the other side.

Journalist blames attributes Liberals' misunderstanding the Ukraine proxy war and China to willful ignorance. Plus he explains the difference between the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and the difference between understanding and approving. Plus the difference between Liberals and Leftists.