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'I haven't seen you for a day, but it's as if 3 autumns passed' — Putin greets Xi with Chinese saying

Putin didn't invade Ukraine because of NATO. He invaded because Ukrainians were proving democracy works. Historian and Pulitzer Prize winner Anne Applebaum puts it plainly: Putin looked at Ukraine's democratic movement and thought, "If they can do it in Ukraine, then people could do it in Russia. So I need to crush this." That's the real threat Ukraine posed. Not missiles. Not borders. A working democracy next door. Applebaum frames the war as a fault line between the democratic and autocratic worlds. Russia isn't just trying to take territory. It's trying to erase Ukraine as a nation, reduce it to a colony, and send a message to every country that the post-1945 rules of Europe no longer apply. Those rules were simple: no invasions, no wars, borders don't change by force. Russia understood exactly what it was breaking when it crossed into Ukraine.

Rolling into the weekend like

Incredible scoop from John, with a blistering blind quote:

Marco Rubio posted a video to Cubans claiming there’s no oil blockade. Needless to say, it didn’t land well with Cubans who are living through blackouts that became far worse after the U.S. began stopping oil from getting to the island.

🚨⚡️ Ukrainian media: Mandatory mobilization of women reportedly begins in Kharkiv amid troop shortages.

What historical fact sounds fake but is true?

He said “Jews” not “Zionists.” Hmmm

Hot take: if the Islamic conquest had never happened, the "middle east" would never have been considered this dark, dangerous and backward area of the world. It would be considered Middle Europe Islam has been holding this part of the Caucasian race back for 1,400 years.

Speaking of losing …

It's interesting how low the white population in Kenya was in 1960 compared to the Rhodesia's.