In a tweet about the Oscars, the Department of Defense quite literally bragged about working in Hollywood, to ensure that the military is only portrayed in a manner they see fit.

This week, the Department of Defense sent out an interesting Tweet where they openly admitted that they control how the US government is portrayed in Hollywood films.

While this is a fact that has been documented for many years, it is still largely overlooked by mainstream media sources, who insist that this idea is nothing more than a conspiracy theory. In the post, it was plainly admitted that the agency "works with Hollywood to ensure the military is portrayed correctly in films."

When you tell an establishment Democrat that Google's hiding and removal of content is a dangerous form of censorship, they often magically transform into Ayn Rand right before your eyes.

"It's a private company and they can do what they like with their property," they will tell you. "It's insane to say that a private company regulating its own affairs is the same as government censorship!"

This is absurd on its surface, because Google is not separate from the government in any meaningful way. It has been financially intertwined with US intelligence agencies since its very inception when it received research grants from the CIA and NSA for mass surveillance, pours massive amounts of money into federal lobbying and DC think tanks, has a cozy relationship with the NSA and multiple defense contracts.

"Some of Google's partnerships with the intelligence community are so close and cooperative, and have been going on for so long, that it's not easy to discern where Google Inc ends and government spook operations begin," wrote journalist Yasha Levine in a 2014 Pando Daily article titled "Oakland emails give another glimpse into the Google-Military-Surveillance Complex".

"The purchase of Keyhole was a major milestone for Google, marking the moment the company stopped being a purely consumer-facing Internet company and began integrating with the US government," Levine wrote in a recent blog post about his book Surveillance Valley. "While Google's public relations team did its best to keep the company wrapped in a false aura of geeky altruism, company executives pursued an aggressive strategy to become the Lockheed Martin of the Internet Age."

Rex Tillerson's criticism of China's policy in Africa is not exactly appropriate, says Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. He also slammed the US for interfering in other countries' affairs, pursuing neo-imperialist ambitions.

Lavrov's statements came on Thursday after he met with Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa in Harare.

"I didn't know that [US Secretary of State] Rex Tillerson is a specialist in Chinese-American relations," Lavrov said. He added that "it's not exactly appropriate" for Tillerson to speak about Africa's relations with other countries, while a guest, especially in such "a negative way."

Michael Flynn, President Trump's former national security adviser, has put his Virginia home on the market to help pay his mounting legal bills after pleading guilty to lying to FBI agents about his Russia contacts, according to a report Tuesday.

Flynn, who was fired from the White House last February, put his 13-year-old, three-bedroom home in Old Town Alexandria on the market in December with an asking price of $895,000, his brother Joe Flynn told ABC News.

He has since lowered the price to $834,995, according to realtor.com.

The retired Army general bought the house three years ago for $774,000.

The Justice Department's inspector general is reportedly close to releasing a report on its investigation into the handling of the Clinton Foundation. FBI Director Christopher Wray reportedly asked deputy director Andrew McCabe to step down in light of some of the findings of the inspector general.

One aspect of the reported findings, however, stands out. According to these reports, investigators believed that McCabe misled them about his approval of a leak to the media on the Clinton investigation. An alleged false or misleading statement by McCabe could rekindle questions about how the Justice Department addresses alleged false statements within its own ranks.

Ultimately, Inspector General Michael Horowitz has the authority to refer a matter to criminal investigators in cases of false statements or other crimes. He can also refer matters to state bars in cases of professional misconduct by lawyers. He could do either in the matter of McCabe if investigators conclude that McCabe intentionally misled them. However, if history is any guide, McCabe is unlikely to find himself facing a charge.

I must say that I am simply baffled by what appears to be the prevailing view in this country, and especially among liberals, that Russia is somehow a threat to the United States.

In truth, one of the only redeeming qualities of a Trump presidency that I saw was the possibility that his administration would repair ties with Russia and work with that country in trying to solve issues of mutual concern, particularly in the Middle East. Yet, that is one goal of the new White House which the establishment, both in Washington and in the media, seem hell-bent on preventing. Indeed, I agree with the assessment of a number of commentators, including Dennis Kucinich who is breaking ranks with fellow liberals over this issue, that the U.S. intelligence community's successful attempt to remove Mike Flynn as National Security Adviser was motivated by the desire to keep the new Cold War going.

While I certainly understand it is in the interest of the military-industrial complex, again as Kucinich explains, to continue to vilify Russia in order to justify our already-bloated military spending, I am a bit taken aback at how eager most liberals are to embrace and even stoke this demonization.

Jeremy Corbyn today accused the Tory government of "colluding" in suspected war crimes as Theresa May welcomes the leader of Saudi Arabia for a major visit.

Labour's leader demanded Britain stop selling weapons to the powerful Arab state to halt a "humanitarian disaster" in Yemen.

And he declared: "British military advisors are directing the war."

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will face angry protests today as he arrives at Downing Street for a three-day trip to Britain.

Authorities are still investigating how Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter fell into a critical condition. That hasn't slowed, let alone stopped, Britain's mainstream media in spinning some pretty wild theories.

Was it the work of Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korea, or someone else entirely? So far, the media have come up with a grab-bag of theories despite no confirmation of any facts from either the Russian or the UK government.

Was it the McMafia?

The Times penned an article headlined 'Peculiarities point towards twilight world of McMafia' on Tuesday. The newspaper wonders: Why would the Russians or Putin kill a spy, living peacefully and quietly (apparently) for the last eight years?

Iran's atomic authority warned that they could produce highly enriched uranium in just two days, should the United States bow out of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), meant to put a halt to Tehran's atomic ambitions.

"If America pulls out of the deal... Iran could resume its 20 percent uranium enrichment in less than 48 hours," Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, told the state-owned al-Alam TV on Monday.

Does the comical gullibility of the Western public have any bounds? Disregarding all the previous false alarms and thoroughly debunked psyop false flag operations designed to pin genocidal misconduct on the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Asad in order to produce a rationale for full scale intervention in Syria, the Western propaganda machine is now being reactivated, hoping to finally score where previously it had failed miserably. East Ghouta (2013), Aleppo (2016), Khan Sheikhun (2017), and now a resuscitated East Ghouta with the tedious "Assad killing his own people" narrative all over again -- perhaps in this case the fourth time's a charm, in Syria at least. After all, given the Western audience's known attention span, the phony 2013 East Ghouta genocidal episode must by now appear pre-historical, so isn't it about time to revisit the same location and give it another try? It just might work this time around.

Predictably (making accurate predictions is easy when arrogant but unimaginative propaganda hacks keep warming over the same cliches) the impending collapse of the terrorist-held enclave of East Ghouta in close proximity to Damascus is being bitterly denounced by their Western sponsors as a new "Srebrenica" in the making. That is meant primarily to evoke genocidal connotations and to create the pretext and concoct the appearance of moral legitimacy for broadening the scope of the current open-ended imperialist intervention on the ground in Syria. On cue, on February 20, and not mincing words either, the London Guardian newspaper made it unambiguously clear where the upcoming Propagandaministerium campaign is going, even as it was gathering steam: "Eastern Ghouta is another Srebrenica, we are looking away again -- The horror of the Bosnian Muslim massacre of 1995 is being repeated today in Syria."