You read that correctly. Four days ago Poland's lower House of Parliament passed amendments to a law already on the books dealing with "repealing remnants of communism". In this case, that means the demolition of almost 500 monuments, many of which are dedicated to Poles and Russians who died in WWII. The decision was made on June 22, the Day of Memory and Sorrow, which honors those deceased during World War II in Russia.

Keep in mind this is the same country - Poland - that embarrassingly put its entire government on the same plane. It looks like they are doing the same thing on a larger scale, so to say. This is also the same country that has supported the Ukrainian movements who collaborated with the Nazis against Poland, fought against the Polish people, and said nothing when some of the million+ Ukrainian immigrants continued to spread the Bandera cult, and doing nothing against the Bandera monuments. But we digress.

The chairman of the upper house of the Russian parliament's international affairs committee, Konstantin Kosachev had this to say about the decision:

"The decision of the Polish Sejm, under which nearly 500 monuments, 'glorifying the totalitarian system,' will be demolished, including memorials in honor of the Red Army, is in itself absolutely in line with totalitarian practices. This is practiced either by modern barbarians like the Taliban [terrorist group, outlawed in Russia] and Ukrainian Nazis, or by the countries that turned anti-Russian hysteria into a permanent element of their domestic policy,".

In contrast, Kosachev added that he had visited the Yad Vashem memorial to the victims of the Holocaust in Jerusalem and the the Soviet War Memorial Tiergarten in Berlin, noting that Germany and Israel respect and honor the heroism and memory of the Red Army servicemen.

Poland has managed to effectively blank out the simple and unquestionable fact that if it wasn't for the Russian army Poland wouldn't occupy much space (if any) on the European map today. To the average Polish person, Russia = Communism, but if you ask someone how we ended up with communism in the first place you get a blank stare at best. The propaganda has done its job.

The Trump team is obsessing over Thucydides, the ancient historian who wrote a seminal tract on war.

The Trump White House isn't known as a hot spot for Ivy League intellectuals. But last month, a Harvard academic slipped into the White House complex for an unusual meeting. Graham Allison, an avuncular foreign policy thinker who served under Reagan and Clinton, was paying a visit to the National Security Council, where he briefed a group of staffers on one of history's most studied conflicts—a brutal war waged nearly 2,500 years ago, one whose lessons still resonate, even in the administration of a president who doesn't like to read.

The subject was America's rivalry with China, cast through the lens of ancient Greece. The 77-year-old Allison is the author of a recent book based on the writings of Thucydides, the ancient historian famous for his epic chronicle of the Peloponnesian War between the Greek states of Athens and Sparta. Allison cites the Greek scholar's summation of why the two powers fought: "What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta." He warns that the same dynamic could drive this century's rising empire, China, and the United States into a war neither wants. Allison calls this the "Thucydides Trap," and it's a question haunting some very important people in the Trump administration, particularly as Chinese officials arrive Wednesday for "diplomatic and security dialogue" talks between Washington and Beijing designed, in large part, to avoid conflict between the world's two strongest nations.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov expressed hope that the next round of Astana talks on settlement of the Syrian crisis will succeed in clarifying the joint vision as regards de-escalation zones, while also noting that some of the players on the Syrian geostrategic chessboard are playing a dishonest and dangerous type of game.

"A significant decline in military activities and terrorist violence has been recorded in particular areas of Syria, thanks to our new memorandum on establishing de-escalation zones within Syrian territory. I hope that the next round of the Astana talks will positively affect our common efforts, aimed at resolving the Syrian crisis and initiating the UN-sponsored talks that are planned to be held in Geneva, following the Astana meeting, in the first half of July," Lavrov was heard saying during a joint press conference with his Ethiopian counterpart Workneh Gebeyehu in Moscow, on Monday.

Any further US weapons sales to Saudi Arabia or other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states will be on hold until the current dispute with Qatar is resolved, said the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker (R-Tennessee).

In a letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Monday, Corker said he

"could not have been more pleased" by President Donald Trump's recent trip to Saudi Arabia and the summit meeting with heads of other Gulf Arab states.

However, the GCC "did not take advantage of the summit and instead chose to devolve into conflict," Corker wrote, referring to the Saudi-led blockade of Qatar initiated three weeks ago.

"Before we provide any further clearances during the informal review period on sales of lethal military equipment to the GCC states, we need a better understanding of the path to resolve the current dispute and reunify the GCC," Corker wrote.

A secretive Washington firm that commissioned the dubious intelligence dossier on Donald Trump is stonewalling congressional investigators trying to learn more about its connections to the Democratic Party.

The Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month threatened to subpoena the firm, Fusion GPS, after it refused to answer questions and provide records to the panel identifying who financed the error-ridden dossier, which was circulated during the election and has sparked much of the Russia scandal now engulfing the White House.

What is the company hiding? Fusion GPS describes itself as a "research and strategic intelligence firm" founded by "three former Wall Street Journal investigative reporters." But congressional sources say it's actually an opposition-research group for Democrats, and the founders, who are more political activists than journalists, have a pro-Hillary Clinton, anti-Trump agenda.

"These weren't mercenaries or hired guns," a congressional source familiar with the dossier probe said. "These guys had a vested personal and ideological interest in smearing Trump and boosting Hillary's chances of winning the White House."

Russia says Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has told his American counterpart to "take measures to prevent provocations" against Syrian government forces.

The Foreign Ministry said that during a June 26 telephone call Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson agreed on the need to reinforce the fraying cease-fire in Syria, "to step up the fight against terrorist groups, and prevent attempts to use toxic agents."

"Lavrov urged Washington to take measures to prevent provocations against Syrian government troops conducting operations against terrorists," the ministry said in a statement.

There was no immediate comment from the State Department.

President Donald Trump will disregard the recent Senate bill imposing new sanctions on Russia because it violated the constitutional requirement that revenue legislation originate in the House of Representatives, the White House has said.

On June 15, the Senate voted 98-2 to impose new sanctions against Russia and codify the existing ones into law, in order to tie Trump's hands when it came to the sanctions policy. In doing so, however, they apparently violated the origination clause of the US Constitution, which requires that any bill raising revenue originates in the House.

"There is no new bill at this time," White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters on Monday, asking if they were referring to the bill that "the Senate parliamentarian ruled didn't follow proper procedure."

An anthropology professor at the has been fired after saying that Otto Warmbier, the American student who died after being held captive in North Korea for 17 months, "got exactly what he deserved."

"The University of Delaware has announced that Katherine Dettwyler, who last taught in the spring as an adjunct faculty member, will not be rehired to teach at the University in the future," the university said in a statement posted on their website.Dettwyler, who has since deleted the Facebook post, said "Otto Warmbier got exactly what he deserved."

"He went to North Korea, for f---'s sake, and then acted like a spoiled, naive, arrogant, US college student who had never had to face the consequences of his actions," Dettwyler wrote, according to reports. "I see him crying at his sentencing hearing and think 'What did you expect?'"

Dettwyler also reportedly asked for "a few moments of thought" for all the other people who suffer at the hands of the North Korean regime — and are "not U.S. citizens."

Northern Ireland's hard-right Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is a "milder form" of the US-based Klu Klux Klan, which once terrorized and murdered black citizens, Respect Party leader George Galloway says.

The former MP was part of a panel discussion on the Tory-DUP confidence and supply arrangement in which the party pledged its ten MPs to the Tories in exchange for over £1 billion pounds worth of spending in Northern Ireland. The deal was finalized on Monday.

The DUP are known for their hard right positions, which include creationism, anti-abortion, and anti-LGBT views, as well as climate change denial.

A Russian submarine has successfully launched a missile from the Barents Sea near Norway to a test site in the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Far East, the Russian Defense Ministry reports.

"The strategic Borey-class nuclear submarine, Yuri Dolgoruky, has successfully fired the Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) from a designated area in the Barents Sea to the Kura Missile Test Range in Kamchatka," the MoD said in a statement.

"The launch was made from an underwater position in accordance with the combat training plan."

"According to the confirmed data from mission control, the ICBM units completed the full flight program and successfully hit the targets in the range."