The RPI Challenge

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...

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,...

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...

“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.” — President Harry S. Truman Militarized police. Riot squads. Camouflage gear. Black uniforms. Armored vehicles. Mass arrests. Pepper spray. Tear gas. Batons. Strip searches. Surveillance cameras. Kevlar vests....

Secret service outside Mar-a-Lago Monday[The Justice Department] must immediately explain the reason for its raid and it must be more than a search for inconsequential archives, or it will be viewed as a political tactic and undermine any future credible investigation and legitimacy of January 6 investigations. — Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo Headline from Politics Insider this morning: Feds likely obtained ‘pulverizing’ amount of evidence ahead of searching Trump's Mar-a-Lago home,...

A good friend of mine, learning of the impending visit of Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, recalled Homer’s description of Helen of Troy, “The face that launched a thousand ships and burnt the towers of Ilium.” Well, Nancy ain’t no Helen of Troy, but she might nevertheless be in the business of launching warships and burning cities due to her bizarre interpretation of her foreign policy prerogatives as Speaker. It is like watching a train wreck developing in slow...

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg recently addressed the Workers Youth League (AUF) summer camp in Utøya, Norway. The AUF is Norway’s largest political youth organization and is affiliated with the Norwegian Labor Party. The AUF summer camp is of course famous for being the scene of the horrific terrorist attack perpetrated by neo-Nazi Anders Breivik in 2011. Stoltenberg said little of note. Nonetheless, his speech was a remarkable demonstration of how little NATO has learned from the...

The reasoning behind the US government’s current confrontations with Russia and China is very much debated, with explanations including sheer incompetence, short-term opportunism from a Democratic Party hellbent on pursuing a destructive geopolitical agenda for its own domestic ends, a blind urge to preserve world domination driven by a diminishing role in world affairs and, from those believing in more rational responses, containment and deterrence as a systematic but flexible response. Not...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “surprise” trip to Taiwan last week should be “Exhibit A” as to why interventionism is dangerous, deadly, and dumb. Though she claimed her visit won some sort of victory for democracy over autocracy, the stopover achieved nothing of the sort. It was a pointless gesture that brought us closer to military conflict with zero benefits.As Col. Doug Macgregor said of Pelosi’s trip on a recent episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight, “statesmanship involves advancing American...

You can always tell how important narrative control is by watching the way people react when their control of the narrative is jeopardized. Empire apologists are raging at Amnesty International for pausing its aggressive facilitation of western imperialism to issue one brief criticism of the way Ukrainian forces have been endangering civilian lives with their warfare tactics against the Russian military. Amnesty is far from the first to highlight this extensively documented issue; that...

For many who watched the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard trial, some of the most outstanding moments involved his defense counsel Yarelyn Mena. It was an extraordinary opportunity for the 29-year old graduated from CUNY (2015) and she was praised for her tough examination of Heard. It was considered the turning point of one of the most famous trials in modern history. It is something that should be a matter of great pride for the CUNY community and, not surprisingly, the website did an article on...

It is unsettling to see a democratic government like the United States beating its chest over the high-tech murder of a retired jihadist, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri. The 71-year-old al-Zawahiri succeeded the assassinated Osama bin Laden as chief of the anti-US underground group, al-Qaeda. The mild-mannered, Egyptian had been a local doctor in Cairo, when the brutal secret police of US-backed dictator, Hosni Mubarak, arrested him. Though al-Zawahiri was not directly involved in the opposition, he...

Only a person who is willfully blind cannot see that the US position on the Brittney Griner case is driven not by some compassionate concern for her welfare but rather by the extreme anti-Russia animus that has afflicted US officials for more than 75 years.  Yesterday, a Russian judge sentenced Griner to 9 years in jail. This was after she pled guilty to illegally bringing a small amount of cannabis into the country, in violation of Russia’s drug laws. She faced a maximum sentence of 10...

In May, Rand Paul, the junior senator from Kentucky, held up a vote on a bill which sought to approve some $40 billion in aid for Ukraine. Paul wanted language inserted into the bill, without a vote, that would have an inspector general scrutinize the new spending. “This would be the inspector general that’s been overseeing the waste in Afghanistan,” Paul said, “and has done a great job.” While senators on both sides of the aisle bristled at Paul’s delay tactics, Christopher Tremoglie, a...