The US targeted assassination, via drone strike, of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, apart from a torrent of crucial geopolitical ramifications, once again propels to center stage a quite inconvenient truth: the congenital incapacity of so-called US elites to even attempt to understand Shi'ism - thus 24/7 demonization, demeaning not only Shi'as by also Shi'a-led governments.

Washington had been deploying a Long War even before the concept was popularized by the Pentagon in 2001, immediately after 9/11: it's a Long War against Iran. It started via the coup against the democratically elected government of Mosaddegh in 1953, replaced by the Shah's dictatorship. The whole process was turbo-charged over 40 years ago when the Islamic Revolution smashed those good old Cold War days when the Shah reigned as the privileged American "gendarme of the (Persian) Gulf".

Yet this extends far beyond geopolitics. There is absolutely no way whatsoever for anyone to be capable of grasping the complexities and popular appeal of Shi'ism without some serious academic research, complemented with visits to selected sacred sites across Southwest Asia: Najaf, Karbala, Mashhad, Qom and the Sayyida Zeinab shrine near Damascus. Personally, I have traveled this road of knowledge since the late 1990s - and I still remain just a humble student.

The occupation. A phrase commonly used when speaking about the injustices taking place in Palestine. It is a phrase that limits the discussion to a small part of Palestine and to only a portion of the Palestinian people. The occupation only exists in the two small areas that we are permitted to state that human rights abuses take place. There are checkpoints and road-blocks and a dual system of justice, one for Jews and another for Palestinians. The Jewish residents in the "Occupied Territories" are called "settlers," and unlike other Israeli Jews, they are "illegal" and the places in which they live are known as "illegal settlements."

The phrases, "the occupation" and "Occupied Palestinian Territories," refer generally to the West Bank, Gaza Strip and sometimes parts of East Jerusalem, depending on who is speaking. These are, of course, the territories which Israel seized in 1967, and which comprise only 22 percent of Palestine as a whole. "The occupation" and the "Occupied Palestinian Territories," have become the focus of those who claim to seek justice for Palestinians and peace in the Middle East, yet that claim misses the mark.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said he was still comfortably in charge and open to direct negotiations with the US, in an interview published Saturday by The Washington Post.

The interview was Maduro's first with a major US outlet since February of last year, when he abruptly ejected all Univision journalists from Venezuela.

"If there's respect between governments, no matter how big the United States is, and if there's a dialogue, an exchange of truthful information, then be sure we can create a new type of relationship," Maduro told the Post.

The socialist leader said he was ready to hold talks with the US to negotiate an end to sanctions imposed by President Donald Trump intended to throttle the South American country's oil industry and force Maduro from power.

I'm sure you have heard a lot about General Soleimani from the mainstream media and his alleged crimes against the Americans in the Middle East. In the video below, I will tell you the real story behind the US hatred towards Soleimani and why he was assassinated.

First of all, the allegation made by the MSM that Soleimani is responsible for killing more than 600 soldiers in Iraq is completely fake news. The source of this allegation is the Pentagon; the same source that lied on Iraq's WMD wants you to believe that Soleimani supported groups in Iraq that killed American soldiers after the illegal occupation of Iraq in 2003. So, firstly, the US occupation of Iraq was illegal according to international law and any agreement with successive Iraqi government after the occupation should be considered null and void. And secondly, the Pentagon is made up this allegation to demonize Iran during the era of George W. Bush and put Tehran in Washington's "axis of evil" list, despite the fact Iran and Soleimani were cooperating with the US back then in order to fight Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Here's a riddle for you: When is a camera not a camera?

It may not sound as important as The Riddle of the Sphinx, but let me assure you it speaks to the very nature of the reality we live in. And it has a simple answer: When is a camera not a camera? When the EU says it isn't.

That's right. Back in 2007, "EU trade experts decided [. . .] that to be classified as a digital camera, equipment must not be able to record at least 30 minutes of a single sequence of video in a quality of 800 x 600 pixels or higher at 23 frames per second or higher."

Yes, "EU trade experts." That's literally how Rothschild Reuters described them. As if there is such a thing as a "trade expert," let alone a level of expertise that would allow you to decide precisely how many minutes of continuous shooting transforms a recording device into a "digital camera." As a result of these vaunted trade experts' proclamation, any device capable of recording at least 30 minutes of continuous video at the above-mentioned resolution is slapped with a customs duty of 5-12% as soon as it enters the borders of the European Union.

But while this may seem like a trivial distinction, it has some very real consequences. The upshot of this "digital camera" duty is that DSLR cameras (almost all of them, no matter where you purchase them) will record precisely 29 minutes and 59 seconds of continuous video before promptly turning themselves off. (I notice it every time I'm recording one of my band's gigs, as this generally means our main camera stops dead just as we get into the heart of the set.)

Please note: This is completely and utterly arbitrary. There is no technical reason for this limitation whatsoever. There are limitations to the size of a single video file on the FAT32 file system that such cameras use to store the videos, but there's an easy workaround: The camera will just split the resulting video into multiple, seamlessly connected files. It makes no difference whatsoever to the final result.

But want to record 30 minutes and 1 second of something without having to physically restart the camera? Sorry, bub, the Eurocrat "trade experts" have decided that you'll have to pay a good deal extra for that privilege, and the manufacturers have responded by simply eliminating that option from their cameras . . . I mean, their "recording devices."

I invite you to pause a second and really think about what that means. Manufacturers are inserting completely arbitrary limits into their own hardware — limits that deliberately impair the function of that hardware — for no other reason than to conform to the arbitrary classifications of overbearing technocrats.

At least three departments are reviewing what could be the worst-ever crime spree by an elected US official

On Oct. 30, I reported that the Department of Justice had assigned an FBI Special Agent in Charge, or SAC, to review Rep. Ilhan Omar's apparent, astonishing spree of felonies from 2009 to 2017.

Minnesota state Rep. Steve Drazkowski (R) had previously filed a complaint on the matter with the Minnesota District of the Department of Justice. That office — headed by U.S. Attorney Erica MacDonald, a 2018 Donald Trump appointee — directed the FBI to review the complaint. An FBI SAC formally met with Rep. Drazkowski, and others, in mid-October to receive a prepared file of evidence and related information.

I can confirm that the FBI has taken additional steps since this October meeting.

On Jan 15, 2020, the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, along with Katarina Verrelli, on behalf of herself and others who seek access to vaccine information, filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Plaintiffs allege that Defendant Adam Schiff has abused government power and infringed on their free-speech rights.

"Who appointed Congressman Adam Schiff as Censor-in-Chief?" asks AAPS General Counsel. "No one did, and he should not be misusing his position to censor speech on the internet."

In February and March 2019, Rep. Schiff contacted Google, Facebook, and Amazon, to encourage them to de-platform or discredit what Schiff asserted to be inaccurate information on vaccines. He then posted the letters and press release on the House.gov website.

The US Defense Department has claimed that its military presence makes Iraq more secure and "prosperous," despite calls by Iraqi lawmakers for the removal of all foreign troops from the country and growing tensions with Iran.

"At this time, there are no plans by the US military to withdraw from Iraq," Assistant to the Secretary of Defense Jonathan Rath Hoffman told reporters at a press briefing.

"And I think it's been obvious... that the consensus in Iraq seems to be that the United States forces there are a force for good."

Acting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says there is unverified information that at least six American F-35 jets were "in the Iranian border area" at the time when Iran accidentally downed Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 last week.

"This information has yet to be verified, but I'd like to underline the edginess that always accompanies such situations," he said on Friday.

Lavrov stressed that it was important to understand the context of the incident, which occurred as Iran was on very high alert after retaliating against Washington's assassination of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani.

"There is information that the Iranians were expecting another attack from the United States after the strike but did not know what form it might take," Lavrov said.

Earlier in January, the Polish parliament adopted a resolution declaring that the Soviet Union carries equal responsibility with Nazi Germany for the beginning of World War II.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has commented on Western attempts to rewrite the history of World War II, saying that Russia doesn't have to prove anything to anyone, and "we have to do everything so that we preserve the truth".

"We don't have to prove anything to anyone and we should do something else. We must do everything so that this truth is not forgotten. We must contrast this with objective information, which we have enough of", he said in an interview with the channel Rossiya 1.