So, we're almost a year into the "New Normal" (a/k/a "pathologized totalitarianism") and things are still looking ... well, pretty totalitarian.

Most of Western Europe is still in "lockdown," or "under curfew," or in some other state of "health emergency." Police are fining and arresting people for "being outdoors without a valid reason." Protest is still banned. Dissent is still censored. The official propaganda is relentless. Governments are ruling by edict, subjecting people to an ever-changing series of increasingly absurd restrictions of the most fundamental aspects of everyday life.

And now, the campaign to "vaccinate" the entirety of humanity against a virus that causes mild to moderate flu-like symptoms or, more commonly, no symptoms at all, in over 95% of those infected, and that over 99% of the infected survive (and that has no real effect on age-adjusted death rates, and the mortality profile of which is more or less identical to the normal mortality profile) is being waged with literally religious fervor.

"Vaccine passports" (which are definitely creepy, but which bear no resemblance to Aryan Ancestry Certificates, or any other fascistic apartheid-type documents, so don't even think about making such a comparison!) are in the pipeline in a number of countries. They have already been rolled out in Israel.

The US CENTCOM's (Central Command) highest commander, General Frank McKenzie, recently revealed the accuracy of the 1,000-pound Iranian precision ballistic missiles fired more than a year ago in retaliation for the unlawful assassination of General Qassem Soleimani. Since World War II, this critical and historic event marked the first direct strike from any country (Iran) against the US. It was an Iranian act of boldness and a shocking decision to confront the strongest superpower on Earth overtly. It indicates that Iran was ready for war when it bombed that US Ain al-Assad military base, the largest in Iraq. Why did the US publicly sharing these facts a year later? US recognition of Iran's bombing accuracy is nothing new because Iran itself announced it a year ago, and the destroyed sites were all over the news. What did the US administration want to show, and what is the message behind Mackenzie's old but new revelations?

It is all about the nuclear deal: the four-star US General released a quantity of essential information received by the US drone. At the same time, Iran launched its missiles, demonstrating and sending different messages. Indeed, disclosing the details confirming Iran's power could be part of the US way to prepare Iran's path to return to the nuclear deal (known as the JCPOA). It shows that the US recognises Iranian regional power and acknowledged its missiles' efficiency and deterrent effect. On the other hand, it could also explain to Iran and the world why the US wants to introduce amendments to the 2015 JCPOA agreement and contain Iran's ballistic missiles and include this issue on the negotiating table.

The program turns neighbors into agents of the surveillance state

One of China's largest and most pervasive surveillance networks got its start in a small county about seven hours north of Shanghai.

In 2013, the local government in Pingyi County began installing tens of thousands of security cameras across urban and rural areas — more than 28,500 in total by 2016. Even the smallest villages had at least six security cameras installed, according to state media.

Those cameras weren't just monitored by police and automated facial recognition algorithms. Through special TV boxes installed in their homes, local residents could watch live security footage and press a button to summon police if they saw anything amiss. The security footage could also be viewed on smartphones.

In 2015 the Chinese government announced that a similar program would be rolled out across China, with a particular focus on remote and rural towns. It was called the "Xueliang Project," or Sharp Eyes, a reference to a quote from communist China's former revolutionary leader Mao Zedong who once wrote that "the people have sharp eyes" when looking out for neighbors not living up to communist values.

A Brazilian Supreme Court judge has cancelled all sentences against the country's former leftist president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, restoring his political rights to run again for office ahead of next year's election.

Supreme Court judge Edson Fachin ruled on Monday that the 13th Federal Court of Curitiba, which had convicted Lula of money laundering and corruption, actually had no jurisdiction over the cases.

The judge annulled all sentences handed to the 75-year-old in relation to 'Operation Lava Jato' (Car Wash) - a major anti-graft investigation in which three ex-presidents and numerous officials were indicted.

Monday's ruling means that Lula's political rights have been restored, making him eligible to run against Brazil's current leader, Jair Bolsonaro, in the presidential election in 2022. The country's so-called 'Clean Record Act' bars those with convictions from holding public office, a measure which already cost the veteran politician a spot in the 2018 presidential race.

The American infatuation with color revolutionism has, in the words of Obama's high priest 'Reverend' Wright, 'come home to roost.' I will not ask God or anyone to "damn America," as Wright did. Rather, I will point out that the U.S. is not so exceptional so as to render the 'demonstration effect' of color revolutions null and void. Political scientists have been fond in recent decades of discussing the robustness of the demonstration effect as concerns the prospective spread of democracy across the former USSR by way of illegal overthrow of authoritarian regimes. Many of these regimes have been relatively benign as authoritarianism usually goes. Nevertheless, we Americans have been eager to see revolution break out across the former communist world. With George Soros's erstwhile assistance, the color revolution's effect is now being demonstrated to Americans both on the right but especially on the left.

There is nothing wrong with peaceful revolution from below when pro-democratic movements can seize power from their authoritarian oppressors without violence. In some cases, even a violent revolution from below can be better than the authoritarian and even more so - to the extent possible - any totalitarian status quo, since the violence being waged against the population in a non-democracy is very likely to exceed that carried out by democratic revolutionaries in seizing power. In this sense, the attempt by a small portion of 'pro-Trump' demonstrators to seize the Capitol building in Washington D.C. on 6 January 2021 was not appropriate. America remains at this moment a democracy, if a rapidly decaying one. The perpetrators of the Capitol storm should be prosecuted no less than the pro-DP BLM and Antifa demonstrators, who have been leveling violence against conservatives, Republicans, and white people for over a year now.

Authorities in Inner Mongolia must "solve ethnic problems" and push the use of the Mandarin language, Chinese President Xi Jinping has said, months after the region was rocked by protests over a new rule that would reduce the use of the local language.

The region in China's far north borders the independent nation of Mongolia, with which it shares ethnic, cultural and linguistic ties.

Tens of thousands took part in demonstrations and school boycotts last year after an edict mandated Mandarin replace Mongolian as the language of instruction, part of a nationwide drive to assimilate China's ethnic minorities into the majority Han culture.

Rare mass rallies, the largest Beijing had witnessed for decades, were followed by a crackdown as armoured vehicles surrounded schools and police arrested dozens of protest leaders.

On Friday, Xi doubled down on the integration policies.

Speaking at an annual convention of political leaders in Beijing, he said Inner Mongolia should "unwaveringly promote the use of national common textbooks," to correct "wrong ideas" on culture and nationality, according to a readout of the meeting in state media.

New Five-Year Plan aims for 'high-quality' economic reform, a tech leap forward and new era of common prosperity

It's Lianghui ("Two Sessions") time - the annual ritual of the Beijing leadership. The stars of the show are the top political advisory body, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference; and the traditional delivery of a work report by the Prime Minister to the top legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC).

The review of the draft outline of China's 14th Five-Year Plan will proceed all the way to March 15. But in the current juncture, this is not only about 2025 (remember Made in China 2025, which remains in effect). The planning goes long-range towards targets in the Vision 2035 project (achieving "basic socialist modernization") and even beyond to 2049, the 100th anniversary of the People's Republic of China.

Premier Li Keqiang, delivering the government work report for 2021, stressed that the target for GDP growth is "above 6%" (the IMF had previously projected 8.1%). That includes the creation of at least 11 million new urban jobs.

On foreign policy, Li could not draw a sharper contrast with the Hegemon: "China will pursue an independent foreign policy of peace" and will "promote the building of a new type of international relations".

That's code for Beijing eventually working with Washington on specific dossiers, but most of all focusing on strengthening trade/investment/finance relations with the EU, ASEAN, Japan and the Global South.

Washington Post has been mocked for an overly enthusiastic headline that called the coronavirus relief bill a "defining move" of Joe Biden's presidency, poised to "sharply" cut poverty by "showering money" on Americans.

After the Senate narrowly passed a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill on Saturday, and President Joe Biden promised that eligible Americans will start receiving their $1,400 stimulus checks from this month onwards, the Washington Post tried to explain that the massive rescue package is more than just about this modest handout.


However, titled 'Biden stimulus showers money on Americans, sharply cutting poverty in defining move of presidency,' the story was criticized for the poor choice of wording that some called "creepy" and "worthy of North Korea."

Brexit is done - and so is Nigel Farage. The former leader of the UK Independence Party and the Brexit Party, credited even by his sharpest critics as the most influential politician of the past two decades, has finally quit politics. And this time it is for good.

In an interview with this weekend's Chopper's Politics podcast, Mr Farage announces he is resigning as leader of the Reform Party and turning his back on politics after three decades of political street fighting. He says: "There is no going back - Brexit is done. That won't be reversed. I know I've come back once or twice when people thought I'd gone, but this is it. It's done. It's over."

Mr Farage famously quit after the 2016 referendum, saying "I want my life back", but then reformed the Brexit Party two years later in 2018 to exploit disaffection with the way the Government was handling the Brexit negotiations. He adds:

"Now's the moment for me to say I've knocked on my last door. I'm going to step down as the leader of Reform UK. I'll have no executive position at all. I'm quite happy to have an honorary one, but party politics, campaigning, being involved in elections, that is now over for me because I've achieved the one thing I set out to do: to achieve the independence of the UK."

Donald Trump has sent legal warnings to the three biggest fundraising entities for the Republican Party, ordering them to stop using his name and likeness on emails and merchandise, according to a new report.

Trump's lawyers sent the cease-and-desist letters on Friday to the Republican National Committee, National Republican Congressional Committee, and National Republican Senate Committee, a Trump advisor told Politico.

'President Trump remains committed to the Republican Party and electing America First conservatives, but that doesn't give anyone - friend or foe - permission to use his likeness without explicit approval,' the advisor said. It follows reports that Trump, who made a fortune licensing his personal brand, is furious his name is being used to help raise funds in support of Republicans who voted to impeach him last month.

On Friday, the RNC had sent out two emails asking supporters to donate as a way to add their name to a 'thank you' card for Trump. The umbrella group supports GOP candidates across the country.

Trump has spurred fears of a GOP civil war after vowing revenge on the 17 Congressional Republicans who voted to impeach or convict him on a charge of inciting insurrection. Trump called them all out by name during his Sunday appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference, telling the audience, 'Get rid of them all!'