US intelligence agencies were right to not reveal evidence of their claims that Russia interfered in US elections, and comparisons with intelligence reports that Iraq had WMDs were not relevant in the current year, according to the State Department.

Asked by RT's Gayane Chichakyan if Friday's public intelligence report should have contained evidence, State Department spokesman John Kirby said that no one should be surprised that US intelligence agencies were keeping evidence secret in order to protect their sources and methods.

"Most American people understand that they have the responsibility to protect their sources and methods," Kirby said, adding it would be "irresponsible" to do otherwise. It is up to the agencies to decide which information they share with the public.

"We rely on them to make that determination for themselves," the State Department spokesman said at Monday's press briefing.

The assessment in Friday's report was made "by all 17 intelligence communities. All of them came to the same basic conclusion: that Russia interfered in the US election," Kirby said. "All of our intelligence communities came to the same basic conclusion, over and over again."

Venezuela's Supreme Court has annulled parliament's resolution aimed at ousting President Nicolas Maduro. The Court ordered them to stop the "political trial" against the president, since it is not within its constitutional authority.

In a statement issued Monday, the high court reaffirmed its position previously expressed in ruling number 948 of the Constitutional Chamber dated November 15, 2016, in which it ordered the country's parliament to "refrain from continuing the procedure of declaring 'political responsibility' against the president of the Republic," as cited by AFP.

It also ordered the legislature to refrain from making decisions that are outside its legislative authority.

The court's statement came after a majority of the 106 deputies of the opposition-led National Assembly voted on Monday to adopt a resolution aimed at effectively ousting the Venezuelan president, declaring that he had "abandoned his post" due to his stewardship of the country's stagnating economy - and calling for snap presidential elections.

George Soros has his eye on the Emerald Isle as the launching point for a bold new crusade against life.

Soros, one of the world's richest men with a net worth of $24.9 billion according to Forbes, has a three-year plan to overturn pro-life legislation not only in Ireland, but also throughout Latin America, Africa, Europe and Tasmania, the Catholic News Agencyreports.

"With one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the world, a win there [Ireland] could impact other strongly Catholic countries in Europe, such as Poland, and provide much needed proof that change is possible, even in highly conservative places," a Soros campaign document stated.

The document further elaborates on the goals of the Soros mission, including his desire to "stem, mitigate and reverse the tide of fetal personhood laws and constitutional amendments ... [and initiate] a robust set of organizations advancing and defending sexual and reproductive rights and injecting new thinking/strategy into the field."

Reflecting the will of the people, the Eighth Amendment was added to the Irish Constitution in 1983 stating, "the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right." Specifically, the Soros campaign seeks to overturn this amendment to allow access to abortion, the Catholic News Agency reports.

Earlier today, ISIS militants destroyed the Hayyan gas company in Homs province, cutting off heating supplies to millions of Syrians in the middle of winter.

This further worsens the situation in the capital, Damascus, where civilians have already been struggling without water for several weeks, after Islamist rebels polluted the water spring in Wadi Barada.

A US Navy ship fired three warning shots at four vessels of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard after they closed in at high speed in the Strait of Hormuz, according to US defense officials cited by Reuters.

The USS Mahan destroyer apparently tried to establish contact with the approaching Iranian vessels and asked them to reduce their speed, but they did not respond, according to unnamed officials quoted by the news outlet.

The incident took place on Sunday.

According to Reuters, Iranian ships came as close as 800 meters (2,624ft) to the USS Mahan, which had been guarding other US vessels.

Pakistan has successfully test-fired its first submarine-based nuclear-capable missile, the military's press department confirmed on Monday.

Launched somewhere in the Indian Ocean, the Babur-3 cruise missile "was fired from an underwater, mobile platform" and "hit its target with precise accuracy," according to a press release from the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media branch of the Pakistani armed forces.

"[The] Babur-3 SLCM in land-attack mode is capable of delivering various types of payloads and will provide Pakistan with a Credible Second Strike Capability, augmenting deterrence," read the statement on the ISPR's website. In military terms, a second-strike capability means the ability to respond to a nuclear attack in kind.

"Pakistan eyes this hallmark development as a step toward reinforcing policy of credible minimum deterrence."

"This light of history is pitiless; it has a strange and divine quality that, luminous as it is, and precisely because it is luminous, often casts a shadow just where we saw a radiance; out of the same man it makes two different phantoms, and the one attacks and punishes the other, the darkness of the despot struggles with the splendor of the captain. Hence a truer measure in the final judgment of the nations. Babylon violated diminishes Alexander; Rome enslaved diminishes Caesar; massacred Jerusalem diminishes Titus. Tyranny follows the tyrant. Woe to the man who leaves behind a shadow that bears his form." ― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

Let's talk about President Obama's legacy, shall we?

This was a candidate who was ushered into office promising hope and change, pledging to put an end to the endless wars that were bankrupting the country (he was actually awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in anticipation of his efforts to bring about world peace), and vowing to put an end of the corporate revolving door that had turned our republic into an oligarchy.

After eight years in office, Barack Obama leaves our nation with a weakened Constitution that has been dealt one crippling blow after another by court rulings and government overreach, with more militarized police empowered to shoot first and ask questions later, with more SWAT team raids, with more government corruption, with more debt than ever before ($19 trillion and rising), with more racial tensions bubbling over into confrontations, with even greater surveillance intruding into the privacy of the citizenry, with less tolerance for free speech and thought, with taxpayers groaning under the weight of even more taxes disguised as fines and fees, with a more "imperial" president empowered to act unilaterally through the use of signing statements and executive orders, with a greater risk of blowback from military occupations, drone strikes and endless wars abroad, and with a citizenry more broken and oppressed than ever.

In other words, Obama leaves our nation worse off than when he took office.

You won't hear any of this from Obama, who believes he would have been re-elected had he been permitted to run for a third term. Nor will you hear it from the celebrities who are quick to sing Obama's praises, while likening Donald Trump to Hitler. And you certainly won't hear it from those who are staging sit-ins, marches and acts of civil disobedience to protest Trump's election, while having failed to voice even a whisper of protest over Obama's long list of civil liberties abuses.

Yet the reality we must contend with is that the world is a far more dangerous place today than it was eight years ago, and Obama must shoulder some of the blame for that. As President Harry S. Truman recognized, "The buck stops here."

How did we come to this?

How did a politician who showed such potential and managed to ignite such positive feelings among the citizenry, young and old alike, go from being a poster child for hope and change to being the smiling face of a government that is blind, deaf and dumb to the needs of its citizens?

Let me answer my own question in a roundabout way by quoting something Meryl Streep said recently in her recent Golden Globe acceptance speech.

The two best-friends-forever are determined to go down whining

On Sunday, Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham were interviewed by accommodating fake journalist (you know, the ones who produce fake newsand refuse to ask critical questions) Chuck Todd for Meet the Press. (link to transcript - video below)

This dynamic duo has joined forces in order to use their combined powers to defeat two of the most sinister villains in the world today - Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.

Al Jazeera are to be congratulated on an undercover investigation exposing something most of us could probably have guessed: that some Israeli embassy staff in the UK - let's not pussy around, Mossad agents - are working with senior political activists and politicians in the Conservative and Labour parties to subvert their own parties from within, and skew British foreign policy so that it benefits Israeli, rather than British, interests.

One cannot really blame Israel for doing this. Most states promote their interests as best they can. But one can and should expose and shame the British politicians who are collaborating with Israel in further harming Britain's representative democracy.

It is not as though these people cannot be easily identified. They even advertise what they are up to. They are members of the Conservative and Labour Friends of Israel. They dominate both parliamentary parties, but especially the Conservatives. According to the CFI's figures, fully 80 per cent of Tory MPs belong to the party's Friends of Israel group.

Former RT journalist Abby Martin has blasted the US intelligence agencies' ODNI report along with the New York Times for publishing "egregious lies" about her and RT.

The NYT article, titled: "Russia's RT, The Network Implicated in US Election Meddling," claimed that two RT anchors "quit during live broadcasts" as a result of RT's propaganda, including Martin. The NYT also claimed that Martin said "the network [RT] is a propaganda outlet."

Speaking to RT on Monday, Martin addressed accusations that her work for RT was part of a Kremlin propaganda effort and explained how the NYT falsely reported on her resignation.

"I've never actually gotten directions from Putin himself," she joked, explaining she was simply "trying to present issues that affect Americans and their communities," on her show, "Breaking the Set," "like reporters in a vibrant democracy should be able to do."

"The New York Times is no stranger to false narratives," Martin said, adding that the media outlet "latched on" to the ODNI report, despite admitting it contained no evidence.