caitlin nails it in her description of the methods the empire uses to maintain its position which it is now in the process of loosing;

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has announced that he expects NATO will be deepening its relationship with its “partners” in the Asia-Pacific because China has not condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“We see that China has been unwilling to condemn Russia’s aggression, and has joined Moscow in questioning the right of nations to choose their own path,” Stoltenberg said at a press conference on Tuesday. “At a time when authoritarian powers are pushing back on the rules-based international order, it is even more important for democracies to stand together, and protect our values. So I expect we will agree to deepen NATO’s cooperation with our Asia-Pacific partners, including in areas such as arms control, cyber, hybrid, and technology.”

Some “Asia-Pacific partners” named by Stoltenberg in his speech include “Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the Republic of Korea.” He also named “Georgia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina” as additional non-NATO “partners” of the military alliance.

As the late scholar on US-Russia relations Stephen Cohen explained years before the Ukraine crisis erupted in 2014, Moscow sees NATO as an “American sphere of influence,” and the expansion of NATO and NATO influence as expansion of that sphere. As the “North Atlantic” Treaty Organization continues to expand its influence and intimacy with “partners” surrounding China, we can probably expect Beijing to take a similar view..........read and tweet more......

 years ago i would have resisted this message below but the intervening years have shown me how true it is on many different levels;

 a retired air force officer provides some clarity on ukraine that you won't find from 'our free press';

If facts are more powerful than beliefs, the war in Ukraine would have never happened, there would be no fantasies of NATO membership, pushed by the US or demanded by a US proxy in Kiev.

If facts were more powerful than beliefs, Europe, as well as Israel would have disciplined Ukraine, and its US proxy in Kiev, for the encouragement and empowerment of Nazism in Ukrainian politics.

To be fair, if Ukraine wasn’t – in fact – a leading source of cheap labor, neon, coal, gas, graphite, and uranium, not to mention wheat, corn and sunflower oil, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Surely, the fact that Ukraine is today a raw material, cheap labor and environmental wasteland on the eastern edge of Europe and northern shore of the Black Sea means something. From the days of Chernobyl under the Soviet Union, to today’s massive open mining pits and extractive and fertilizer intensive corn and sunflower production, Ukraine seems destined to be a typical tool of greater powers. A central Africa for Belgium, a North Africa for the French.  Has Ukraine really been a 21st century colony for the United States?

Money can be made in Ukraine – just not by most Ukrainians.  Hence, the debate between emotion and logic.

People who feel that they are used as cheap and expendable labor so that a few may dance and dine in great palaces often organize in angry mobs, unions, and populist parties.

Politics are not ethnically driven as much as they are emotionally driven.  Ideas of justice, righteousness, and hatred of a shared enemy, all of this fosters a kind of nationalism, and it creates states.  The state of Ukraine is still being created, and would have been long before this if not for the interference of the UK, NATO and the United States............read more.........

 the bucha massacre is a classic 'false flag' and this article goes to great lengths to show you how the empire is doing its best to muddy the scene of their crime;

“The Bucha Massacre” has now become the driving force for the propaganda push for even more NATO involvement in the conflict in Ukraine.

Yet the claim that this is a Russian war crime is so patently false that a rational observer can only be left astounded by the combination of bare-faced nerve and slapdash incompetence displayed by the media outlets and politicians pushing this disgusting smear.

The latest effort of the Western media to deny Russian rebuttals is the claim that satellite photos show the bodies were there for weeks. Far from ‘proving’ the case against Russian troops, however, this new assertion in fact raises yet more questions which undermine the Western story.

The satellite photos certainly appear to show bodies, but they also show no sign at all of the burnt out cars which are such a prominent feature of the ground photos and videos. Are we supposed to believe that these vehicles were carefully driven in and positioned between the corpses after the shooting spree?

A similar suspension of belief is required when considering the dates involved. The ‘Bucha Massacre’ entry in Wiki (accessed 09.25 on 5th April 2022) reads as follows:

‘On 4 April, satellite images were provided to The New York Times by Maxar Technologies. The Times compared images to video evidence and concluded: “many of the civilians were killed more than three weeks ago, when Russia’s military was in control of the town.” The images of Yablonska Street show at least 11 “dark objects of similar size to a human body” appearing between 9 March and 11 March”.’..........read more.......

 i ignore most of what i see/hear from 'our free press' about russia as propaganda by state actors for their purposes, but the rest of this article is fully on point, as the hypocrisy displayed by the empire brings to mind that when you point a finger at another there are three or four pointing back at you;

Currently in the Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin is carrying out atrocious acts of war in which 1,400 men, women and children have been killed. Millions of Ukrainians have lost their homes, their careers and have been displaced — turned into refugees, overnight. Many parts of the country have been reduced to rubble and it will take years to rebuild — even if the war ended tomorrow.

On top of the 1,400 deaths, another 2,000 have been injured and that list is growing by the day. By all definitions, Vladimir Putin is a war criminal. This much is clear and most everyone would agree. Rightfully so, millions of people are demanding justice for Ukraine.

But something peculiar happens when we examine these calls for justice and the desire to hold war criminals accountable for their actions. If you truly support the cause for war criminals to be held accountable, then you must remain consistent in this inclination. Unfortunately, however, the overwhelming majority of people calling for Putin to be held accountable for war crimes, are egregiously inconsistent.

Last month, President Joe Biden called Putin a war criminal, and as pointed out above, this is correct. But if Biden were truly interested in accountability for war criminals, he would turn himself into the International Criminal Court in The Hague, for immediate prosecution.

But Biden is not interested in accountability and the US, just like Russia, does not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC. This is because justice is not the point, demonization of Russia and out political enemies is the point.

The propaganda behind the well-deserved demonization of Russia is so thick that it has blinded the West from seeing the very well documented war crimes committed by their own governments.

Journalist Julian Assange pointed out some of these war crimes by releasing the “Collateral Murder” video through WikiLeaks. We had video evidence of the United States targeting and murdering civilians — including two Reuters journalists — and the only one whose been arrested is Assange, who has been tortured in isolation for years for exposing these crimes..........read and watch more......

 no knock raids in the middle of the night aught to be illegal. they're already immoral and there are many reasons they are dangerous to all involved, especially those in the wrong house early in the morning, as this article displays;

Pensacola, FL — As TFTP reported in February, Corey Marioneaux Jr., 24, is a father of two, church-going community member with no criminal record who defended his family from armed intruders. Because the intruders were cops, however, Marioneaux was charged with attempted murder of a law enforcement officer. He was completely innocent.

Thankfully, however, justice has prevailed and the State Attorney’s Office announced its decision not to criminally prosecute Marioneaux as he acted in self-defense and they could not prove that he knew the intruders were cops.

“State Attorney Ginger Bowden Madden announces that after diligent investigation and review no criminal prosecution will be commenced against Corey Marioneaux Jr. for a shooting incident that occurred during the lawful execution of a search warrant at his residence on February 3rd, 2022,” the release stated.

“We are pleased that prosecutors have opted to drop all charges against Corey Marioneaux, Jr. today,” Marioneaux’s attorneys said in a statement. “If officers with the Pensacola Police Dept. had simply taken a moment to fully evaluate the situation, he wouldn’t have been arrested in the first place. Mr. Marioneaux is completely innocent and deserves to have his record cleared and good name restored.”

Luckily, during the early morning raid in which police used a battering ram to break through Marioneaux’s front door and storm into his living room, no one was killed. Had this father of two actually killed one of the intruders, however, he would have been justified in doing so as Marioneaux had his two children — ages 1 and 3 — asleep in his room.

As we reported, police claimed they “knocked” for ten seconds at his front door but most people are still asleep at this hour, so it is quite easy not to hear them.

Though the knocking didn’t wake him, when his door was smashed in with a ram, Marioneaux immediately jumped up, grabbed his pistol and defended his family. He would fire one shot at the armed intruders breaking into his home and luckily, his shot was deflected by one of the officer’s shields.........read and tweet more.....

 the empire's collapse seems to be accelerating;

An American political analyst and journalist says the US coup failure against the government of Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is “a sign that Empire’s days as hegemon are over.” 

For the first time in the history of Pakistan’s parliament, its members chanted “Death to America” as they rejected a no-confidence vote, which sought to oust Prime Minister Khan, saying “foreign powers” are interfering in the country’s democratic process.

Qasim Khan Suri, the National Assembly deputy speaker, dismissed the no-trust move against the prime minister on Sunday, terming it as “contradictory” to Article 5 of Pakistan’s Constitution.

Suri said that the motion was presented on March 8 and should be conducted according to the law and the Constitution, stressing, “No foreign power shall be allowed to topple an elected government through a conspiracy.”

The Pakistani president later dissolved the National Assembly on Khan’s advice.

“The President of Pakistan, Dr. Arif Alvi, has approved the advice of the Prime Minister,” a statement from his office said, meaning fresh elections must be held within 90 days.

Khan on Saturday accused the United States of being behind the parliamentary the no-confidence motion, calling it an attempt at regime change backed by Washington.......read more......