So Le Petit Roi in Paris was predictably crushed in the European polls. He has called parliamentary snap elections, dissolving the Assemblée Nationale in an act of blind, puerile revenge on French citizens, de facto attacking French institutional democracy.

That doesn't mean much anyway, because the lineaments of "liberty, equality, fraternity" have long been usurped by a crass oligarchy.

The second round of these fresh French elections will be on July 7 - nearly coinciding with the British snap elections on July 11, and only a few days before the slow-burning urban catastrophe which will be the Olympics in Paris.

Paris salons are ablaze with intrigue on why the little Rothschild stooge with a Napoleon complex is throwing all his toys out of the pram now because he's not getting what he wants.

After all what he really craves is to become a "War President" - together with the Cadaver in the White House, Starmer in the UK, Rutte in the Netherlands, the Toxic Medusa von der Lugen in Brussels, Tusk in Poland, without having to answer to the French people.

It's nearly certain that Le Petit Roi will be facing the real prospect of becoming a lame duck President who needs to obey a right-wing parliament; Elysée Palace chatter already joined the circus, conveying the impression he might resign (that was later denied). Still, if Le Petit Roi runs off to war on Russia no French citizen will follow him, least of all the - pitiful - French army.

Bigger things though are in play. Following the - auspicious - game-changing messages to the Global Majority coming out of the St. Petersburg forum last week, anchored on openness and inclusiveness, the BRICS 10 meeting of Foreign Ministers in Nizhny Novgorod carried the baton early this week.

Foreign Minister Lavrov stressed three key points:

1. "The countries of the Global South no longer want to be dependent on the double standards of the West and its whims."
2. "Everyone knows that the BRICS countries already serve as the locomotive of the world economy."
3. "We [at the BRICS FMs meeting] stressed the need for consistent efforts to create a new world order, where the equality of independent states will be the key."

Now compare it with the shrinking G7 meeting later this week in Puglia in southern Italy: the same old song, from a "tough new warning" to Chinese banks ("Don't do business with Russia or else!") to vociferous threats against the China-Russia strategic partnership.

And last but not least, extra plotting to skim interest from the massive, frozen/stolen Russian assets with the intent of sending them to country 404; the Toxic Medusa itself announced that country 404 will receive €1.5 billion of the income from stolen Russian assets from the EU in July, 90% of it to buy weapons.

As for U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell - the man who invented the defunct "pivot to Asia" during Harpy Hillary Clinton's tenure in the early 2010s - he had already advanced that Washington will sanction Chinese companies and banks over Beijing's relations with Russia's military-industrial complex.

Russia could potentially make changes to its nuclear doctrine should the "escalatory actions" by the US and its allies push it into doing so, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has warned.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a BRICS ministerial meeting in Nizhny Novgorod, Ryabkov admitted the international situation has been getting increasingly "complicated" and changes to his country's nuclear posture could not be ruled out.

"The challenges that are growing thanks to the unacceptable and escalatory actions of the US and its NATO allies undoubtedly prompt a full-fledged question of how the basic documents in nuclear deterrence can be brought more into line with current needs," Ryabkov said.

The diplomat refused to elaborate on the exact nature of the potential amendments, explaining that Moscow does not have a "practice of covering in advance what kind of changes can be made" before actual decisions are taken.

Below is my column in The Hill on the latest calls to protect democracy with distinctly undemocratic measures. Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton insisted that the 2024 election was our D-Day, suggesting that voters would have to fight the GOP like the Nazis in World War II. Clinton previously called on Europe to censor American citizens when Twitter sought to dismantle its censorship program and called her defeat in the 2016 election "illegitimate." Yet, for many civil libertarians, the "defenders of democracy" are the very threat to democracy going into the 2024 election.

Here is the column:

In 2024, the greatest test for our Constitution may be whether it can survive the "Defenders of Democracy."

Ronald Reagan often said, "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help." Today, Reagan's line cannot compare with the line that sends many of us into a fetal position: "I'm a Democrat and I am here to save democracy."

'....the US constitution is being corrupted...the Uniparty has taken over....a ruthless & corrupt party system...greed, corruption & egos are centre stage...totalitarianism is coming...but the constitution may yet catch them out!!!

Moscow has condemned Washington's decision to allow arms supplies to Ukraine's notorious Azov Brigade

Washington will stop at nothing, including the use of neo-Nazis, to damage Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday, following a US decision to lift a ban on supplying weapons to Ukraine's Azov Brigade.

The unit has notoriously welcomed into its ranks people who espouse ultranationalist and neo-Nazi ideologies, and has been described by the Western press as a magnet for such individuals from across the world.

On Monday, the US Department of State cleared the brigade to receive American military assistance, stating that it found no evidence of human rights violations by the group.

"This sudden change of stance by Washington proves that [US officials] would stoop to anything in their attempts to suppress Russia, using the Ukrainian people as a tool. They are even fine with flirting with neo-Nazis," Peskov told journalists during a media briefing.

France is deceiving the public by claiming that it has not deployed any troops to Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

On Thursday, French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said his country had never trained troops on Ukrainian territory, but added that the option of sending French instructors to the country is "not taboo." Later, President Emmanuel Macron - who suggested that the West should not rule out stationing soldiers in Ukraine - said that several of Paris' allies had already agreed to deploy military trainers. However, he did not say which counties were on board with this policy.

Commenting on the French officials' remarks on Sunday, Lavrov told journalist Pavel Zarubin that "The prime minister of France suddenly began to say that they do not have instructors there [in Ukraine]. It's not true and they know it."

Will Stewart is one of today's most productive British journalists. In fact, he might just be one of the most widely published hacks in the history of the trade. Each year, hundreds of his articles are published in major publications. However, most of his work is an attempt to incite fear and hatred.

Russians are no strangers to bad press. Cold War narratives haven't gone anywhere and even prior to the Ukraine conflict, Western journalists used any opportunity to publish sensationalist news about the country, regardless of whether it had any basis in reality.

A 2019 study showed that only 2% of all items published about Russia in Western media were positive. Which left 98% as either negative, or deemed neutral.

The most impressive fact, however, is that a single man was behind many of them - Stewart, who has apparently worked in Russia since 1993.

Stewart's portfolio on MuckRack boasts almost 15,000 articles in over 40 publications. Most of them are about Russia and are written in the same style: a scandalous headline, a manipulative account of events, and a few quotes from controversial experts. Stewart is most often published in The Sun, The Daily Mail and The Mirror - British tabloids that typically pay equal attention to sensationalist themes.

The US and EU media landscape is filled with "unsettling aggression" while dissenting opinions are stifled, according to the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman.

Western leaders and media only express their concerns when they feel that their own security might be at stake, turning a blind eye to the suffering caused by their policies, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told RT in an interview aired on Saturday.

The West routinely accuses Russia of aggressive actions but refuses to understand that Moscow is only responding to the hostile moves of the US and its allies, she stated.

Zakharova recalled being approached by a group of British journalists worried about Russia potentially deploying its weapons closer to the UK. She was asked to comment on statements by President Vladimir Putin earlier this week that Russia could send weapons to certain regions to be able to strike Kiev's arms suppliers directly if Russian territory is attacked.

A jury in Delaware on Tuesday found Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, guilty on three felony gun charges after a weeklong trial that focused on his history of drug addiction.

Hunter Biden was charged in federal court in Wilmington with three felony counts tied to possession of a gun while using narcotics, and had pleaded not guilty. The jury started its deliberations on Monday afternoon, and deliberated for about three hours before returning the historic verdict.

Hunter Biden looked straight ahead at the jury as it delivered the verdict, and slightly nodded as it was read.

The trial was the first involving the offspring of a sitting president, and came as Joe Biden is facing a brutal re-election fight against former President Donald Trump in November. First lady Jill Biden was not in the courtroom as the verdict was read, and arrived at the courthouse minutes later. She immediately went into a holding room where Hunter Biden went after the verdict.

Scrubbed database, then fed WaPo disinformation

Last week, Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene took a detour from grilling Anthony Fauci over COVID-19, to confront him with photos of beagles who had been subjected to animal testing experiments widely reported to be funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) under the National Institutes of Health (NIH), following a 2021 investigation series by the group White Coat Waste Project.

"We should be recommending you to be prosecuted," Greene told Fauci. "We should be writing a criminal referral because you should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. You belong in prison," she continued, adding "That man does not deserve to have a license. As a matter of fact, it should be revoked and he belongs in prison."