As someone with a background in foreign policy and international affairs, I am often asked to discuss the ramifications of having Joe Biden as the so-called leader of the Free World. While it is easy to get carried away debating the merits of a heavily compromised man being the physical representation of the Free World, and how cringeworthy and depressing that is, I can’t help but get stuck on the possibility that the term itself is no longer viable. “What Free World?” The Free World is a term...

Investigative site Bellingcat is the toast of the popular press. In the past month alone, it has been described as “an intelligence agency for the people” (ABC Australia), a “transparent” and “innovative” (New Yorker) “independent news collective,” “transforming investigative journalism” (Big Think), and an unequivocal “force for good” (South China Morning Post). Indeed, outside of a few alternative news sites, it is very hard to hear a negative word against Bellingcat, such is the gushing...

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic governments across the world implemented an unprecedented and untested strategy to slow the spread of the disease. Colloquially known as lockdowns, these public health interventions effectively shut down most normal societal functions through the use of stay-at-home orders, school closures, business closures, bans on large gatherings, and travel restrictions. This policy apparatus effectively relegated the vast majority of people to a form of...

Despite progressive lawmakers in his own party long demanding a serious reduction in the Pentagon's notoriously bloated budget, President Biden on Friday is expected to request a whopping $715 billion for the Pentagon for fiscal year 2022. This is a slight increase from the prior year as Politico noted late Thursday in reporting the news: the Pentagon budget topline to be presented to lawmakers represents "a roughly 1.5% increase in defense spending from the current year's [$704 billion]...

For a time after Joe Biden took office not quite three months ago, among the questions raised was how the new administration would address the Syria question. I do not think we will have to wonder about this much longer. It is early days yet, but one now detects the Biden’s administration’s Syria policy in faint outline. From what one can make out, it is bleak, it is vicious, it is unconscionably cruel to the Syrian people. And it may prove yet worse than anything the Trump administration came...

Israel is almost completely opened for business. But to participate in the post-coronavirus bustle, you need a Green Pass, a government-sanctioned document that says the carrier has been vaccinated. And that’s troubling, to say the least. This post-coronavirus world is more and more moving to be all about the collective, zero about the individual. According to a report in The New York Times, individuals who show a Green Pass — the government’s downloadable special OK for the vaccinated — can...

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) SUBJECT: Avoiding War in Ukraine Dear President Biden, We last communicated with you on December 20, 2020, when you were President-elect. At that time, we alerted you to the dangers inherent in formulating a policy toward Russia built on a foundation of Russia-bashing. While we continue to support the analysis contained in that memorandum, this new memo serves a far more pressing purpose. We wish to draw...

Liberty advocates, rejoice! The idiocracy is going to save us from another form of COVID tyranny. Thanks to a combination of bungling authoritarians and decaying legacy corporations, these entities are simply too incompetent to pull off a functioning vaccine passport program. New York’s rollout of its vaccine passport already has the markings of a five alarm dumpster fire. The New York State “Excelsior Pass” vaccine passport system, which was created by IBM, has so many issues that I wouldn’t...

The now-validated facts about Hunter are precisely those the US media -- in tandem with Silicon Valley and the intelligence community -- suppressed based on lies.(bigger) The revelation that Hunter Biden is being criminally investigated for his business activities in China came on Monday from the investigative target himself, and he predictably and self-servingly depicted it as just a narrow probe about his “tax affairs” by the US Attorney for Delaware. As I wrote last night, that by itself...

If only we’d been able to see sooner that the disease wasn’t the hoax, the response was. How do we even know now? Pigs are flying everywhere. The media are fessing up. After fanning COVID panic for a year, Democratic newsletter Salon admits it was all for partisan purposes: “Americans have been sucked into an all-or-nothing approach, with your choice of all or nothing depending largely on your partisan identity.” Salon continues: Trump’s rejection of sensible precautions caused many of his...

On March 24th, Ukraine's President Vladimir Zelensky signed what was essentially a declaration of war on Russia. In the document, titled Presidential Decree No. 117/2021, the US-backed Ukrainian leader declared that it is the official policy of Ukraine to take back Crimea from Russia.The declaration that Ukraine would take back Crimea from Russia also followed, and was perhaps instigated by, President Biden’s inflammatory and foolish statement that “Crimea is Ukraine.”US Secretary of State...

So this is what the slick, about to be recalled, governor of California is up to now. He on Friday cleared the way for people to attend indoor concerts, theater performances and NBA games for the first time in more than a year. Governor Newsom won’t require testing or proof of vaccination for most of the events. BUT the ba*tard has a nudge that will incentivize entertainment operators to do so. As I previously have pointed out, Cass Sunstein, author of, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health,...

The Wisconsin Supreme Court blocked Democratic Gov. Tony Evers from issuing any new public health emergency orders to mandate face masks. In a 4-3 decision that broke along ideological lines, the conservative majority found that Evers lacked authority for his order. It is similar to a ruling rejecting orders by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. What was most striking was the dissenting opinion from the three liberal justices. The dissenting justice adopted the most convoluted and artificial...

“If you catch 100 red fire ants as well as 100 large black ants, and put them in a jar, at first, nothing will happen. However, if you violently shake the jar and dump them back on the ground the ants will fight until they eventually kill each other. The thing is, the red ants think the black ants are the enemy and vice versa, when in reality, the real enemy is the person who shook the jar. This is exactly what’s happening in society today. Liberal vs. Conservative. Black vs. White. Pro Mask...

Extra! Extra! Bernie Sanders channels two toxic white males: François-Marie Arouet (better known as Voltaire) and John Stuart Mill. According to a magnificent statement widely attributed to the former: “I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” John Stuart Mill in his “On Liberty” made a powerful utilitarian case for free speech. It is the best, perhaps the only way, to get to the truth. As well, if you are not aware of what the other side of a...