The RPI Challenge

Should a human rights organization apologize for publishing important evidence of war crimes and human rights abuses? If it does apologize, what does that suggest about its commitment to dispassionately uncovering the truth about the actions of both parties to war? And equally, what message does it send to those who claim to be “distressed” by the publication of such evidence? Those are questions Amnesty International should have pondered far more carefully than it obviously did before issuing...

The great beauty about the war of attrition is that the military strategy of belligerent attempts to win a war by wearing down the enemy may not necessarily achieve the intended strategic success. Worse still, it may remain inconclusive and it becomes difficult to distinguish between the winner and the vanquished.  The best example in modern times has been the War of Attrition that Egypt launched in March 1969 to wear down Israel by means of a long engagement and so provide Egypt with the...

Any serious effort to end the crisis must deal with the problem of the administrative state and the bureaucratic power thereof. Without that focus, no reform effort can get anywhere. That is surely a main takeaway from the trauma of our times. The solution has to be drastic and it has to work. The reason is simple: a free and functioning society cannot coexist with an undemocratic beast like this on the loose, making its own laws and running roughshod over rights and liberties with zero...

After 8 years of arming and training Ukraine’s army and air force, spending billions of tax payer dollars, the United States no longer has a viable strategy to defeat the Russian forces and compel Vladimir Putin to accept a humiliating defeat. Yes, the US and NATO are pouring a large amount of HIMARS, Army Tactical Missile Systems (aks ATACMS), tanks, vehicles and aircraft into the fight, but this is only prolonging the inevitable surrender of Ukraine. Worse, it is poisoning any chance of...

The Biden administration’s “Inflation Reduction Act” will increase inflation with hundreds of billions in additional government spending and money creation by the Fed while making supply chain problems even worse with onerous new corporate taxes, especially on energy, and myriad new “Green New Deal” environmental regulations. Increased government spending and reduced production will cause higher prices, not lower. To collect all the new taxes for this latest election-year spending binge the...

Although the medical use of marijuana has been legalized in 37 states, its recreational use is legal only in 19 states. (South Dakota voters approved a recreational marijuana initiative in the 2020 election, but it was overturned by a state circuit judge and upheld by the state supreme court.) That is still a lot of states with legal weed considering that it was not until 2012 that the first two states (Colorado and Washington) legalized the recreational use of marijuana. In just the last two...

When 30 FBI agents showed up at Mar-a-Lago to cart off boxes of documents, it was an authorized, legitimate and justified procedure to retrieve national security secrets being illegally kept there. Or it was an unprecedented regime raid on the home and office of the foremost political rival of President Joe Biden that called to mind a “Third World country,” the East German “Stasi,” the KGB or the Gestapo. And Jan. 6, 2021? That was a riot, a disgraceful breach of the Capitol, involving...

The Ukraine war is becoming the EU’s death knell as its leadership, accepting jointly with Europe’s main governing parties the US instructions on confronting Russia, has bet the house on a Russian military defeat in Ukraine and a political-economic collapse leading to regime change in the Kremlin. The EU leaders have dangerously and increasingly tied the fate of the European integration project to their belief (based on gross miscalculation or misled by Anglo-American intelligence) in an...

Back on June 1st, I noted that Ukraine couldn’t possibly absorb more than $54 billion in US aid, most of it related to weaponry and munitions, given the country’s lack of infrastructure as well as the chaos inherent to a shooting war. As I wrote back then: The entire defense budget of Ukraine before the war was just under $6 billion. How can Ukraine possibly absorb (mostly) military “aid” that represents NINE TIMES their annual defense budget? It simply can’t be done… From a military...

West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin recently claimed the 15 percent corporate minimum tax contained in the Inflation Reduction Act, which should be called the Inflation Creation Act, is not a tax increase. Instead, he claimed, the bill simply closes a loophole that allows corporations to avoid paying all the taxes they owe. Despite what Senator Manchin says, the fact is the new minimum tax increases the amount of money some corporations must hand over to the government; in other words, it...

It was a good but bizarre day when the CDC finally reversed itself fundamentally on its messaging for two-and-a-half years. The source is the MMWR report of August 11, 2022. The title alone shows just how deeply the about-face was buried: Summary of Guidance for Minimizing the Impact of COVID-19 on Individual Persons, Communities, and Health Care Systems — United States, August 2022.  The authors: “the CDC Emergency Response Team” consisting of “Greta M. Massetti, PhD; Brendan R. Jackson, MD;...

China policy seems to be made by, and written about by, adults who were often beaten up on the school playground. They retain the language of bullying, and weaknesses, and standing up, and the fantasy that something would sweep in and save them from losing another days’ lunch money (maybe an aircraft carrier group?) That these people are now in control of the media, if not the House, does nothing good for anyone, especially anyone located on either side of the Taiwan Strait. American seems...

David French, maybe National Review’s most reliably wrong scribe, issued this gem in response to the FBI raid on Donald Trump’s residence in Florida: Given that we still haven't seen the warrant, much less the warrant application, the immediate frenzied anger at the FBI is completely unjustified. There is no constitutional, statutory, or moral foundation for the belief a former president is above the law. So, wait. /1 — David French (@DavidAFrench) August 9, 2022 If the DOJ's actions turn out...

Former White House Covid advisor Andy SlavittMarch 1, 2021 a group of MIT students and Phd candidates put together a set of visuals and deep “analysis” takes based on Twitter interactions around Covid. In one section they call out the ring leaders of the “Anti-Maskers Network” - yours truly, Alex Berenson, our own team reality collages El Gato, HOLD2, Kerpen, Gummi Bear, Kyle Lamb, Jordan Schlachtel, Clay Travis and Ethical Skeptic. From the report: The anti-mask network comprises over 2,500...

Viewed from afar, the extent of Ukrainian corruption appears to go far deeper than the recent shift in the narrative might suggest, and it might come back to bite the West as weapons sent to Kiev's forces are disappearing with no account as to their whereabouts. Just as it was with America’s support for the Mujahideen in the 1980s in fighting a proxy war against the Soviets, its backing of the Ukrainian government may one day reap a whirlwind. And just like its involvement in Afghanistan,...