Glenn Simpson, the former Wall Street Journal reporter turned high-priced “oppo” merchant, didn’t like to think of himself as a private investigator. He preferred to describe what he and his firm, Fusion-GPS, did as “journalism for rent,” an activity a class above spying, because a journalist can’t just say what he or she thinks. “You have to prove it,” Simpson said. “And that imposes a discipline to the investigative process that people in other fields don’t really absorb… When you’re a spy,...

Join RPI founder Ron Paul, Ludwig von Mises Institute founder (and former Rep. Ron Paul chief-of-staff) Lew Rockwell, and special guests to be announced for a small, intimate luncheon to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Nixon closing the gold window and severing that last bit of connection between that green piece of paper called the US dollar and gold. The Ron Paul Institute in the business of bringing people together, and what a way to jump back in the saddle than this terrific seminar...

Joe Biden travelled to Brussels riding the wave of his “America is back” mantra. Far from rebuilding the US-NATO relationship, he used NATO as a prop to help set the stage for his upcoming meeting with Vladimir Putin. The United States is facing a perfect storm of crises of its own making. On the domestic front, the American democratic institution is collapsing under the weight of centuries of unresolved societal inequities that threaten to divide the country into two irreconcilable factions....

In April, I wrote a column outlining the constitutional violations of mask mandates and asking why the courts have failed to abide by the line of Supreme Court cases protecting the right to bodily integrity. Well, on Friday a Florida appeals court did exactly that, perhaps in more emphatic language than a Kentucky judge last week. Although Florida has been largely free of state-based COVID restrictions and never had a mask mandate, several counties, such as Alachua, zealously instituted...

The media has given highly favorable coverage to a new book by Dr. Carol Anderson, chair of Emory University’s Black Studies Department, that argues that “[the Second Amendment] was designed and has consistently been constructed to keep African Americans powerless and vulnerable.” In interviews with media outlets like CNN and NPR Anderson’s theory is not challenged on the history and purpose of the Second Amendment. Like the contested claims of the “1619” project (which posited that slavery...

April 19 was the 28th anniversary of one of the most shameful episodes in modern American history: the massacre of 76 innocent men, women, and children by agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) in a military-style assault on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas.The assault followed a botched raid on the Davidian compound (staged at a time that it would distract attention from an ATF sexual harassment scandal) and a two-month standoff between the Davidians and the...

Early in the pandemic, I had been furiously writing articles about lockdowns. My phone rang with a call from a man named Dr. Rajeev Venkayya. He is the head of a vaccine company but introduced himself as former head of pandemic policy for the Gates Foundation. Now I was listening. I did not know it then, but I’ve since learned from Michael Lewis’s (mostly terrible) book The Premonition that Venkayya was, in fact, the founding father of lockdowns. While working for George W. Bush’s White House...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will hold an “emergency meeting” of advisers to talk about the higher-than-expected numbers of young men who’ve experienced heart inflammation after taking doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines against coronavirus. Shh! That is, after taking doses of the entirely experimental, never-before-approved-for-use-in-any-disease mRNA vaccines against coronavirus. Remember, these vaccines are labeled “emergency use authorization” for a reason. And that...

Dr. Anthony Fauci’s recent suggestion that attacks on him are attacks on science itself is nonsensical. His attitude towards criticism is a prime example of scientism, which treats people in scientific fields with undue reverence. There has been an interesting cultural fight within the culture war over science itself. Many people on the political left have a tendency to place scientific method on a pedestal and not consider it for what it is – which is, purely and simply, scientific method....

March 2021 marked the 10th anniversary of the Western regime-change war on Syria. And after a decade of grueling conflict, Washington is still maneuvering to extend its longstanding relationship with the Salafi-jihadist militants fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. With the northeastern province of Idlib under the control of a self-proclaimed “Syrian Salvation Government” led by the rebranded version of Syria’s al-Qaeda franchise, and protected under the military aegis of NATO member...

Would you be comfortable inviting a convicted sex offender to babysit your 8 year-old daughter for the evening? I know what you’re thinking, “That’s preposterous, what a ridiculous question! Who in their right mind would ever consider such nonsense?” I agree, it does sound crazy. But think about this. Way back in 2009 Pfizer Inc. which is one of the four manufacturers of the not-yet-approved-by-the-FDA experimental therapy called a “vaccine” was convicted by the United States Department of...

For over a year, there has been one fact that has been repeated in literally thousands of news stories: former Attorney General Bill Barr ordered the clearing of Lafayette Park on June 1, 2020 to allow former President Donald Trump to hold his controversial photo op in front of St. John’s Church. From the outset, there was ample reason to question the claim echoed across media outlets. As I noted in my testimony to Congress on the protest that month, the operation was clearly a response to...

Reading the tea leaves a week before Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin meet in Geneva puts a premium on the kind of media analysis we old-school Kremlinologists had to rely on back in the day. Not all rhetoric is equal though; it is just as important to make an honest attempt to reconstruct the circumstances surrounding a major initiative like the summit proposal. The weird timing of the invitation cries out for explanation. You Asked For It, Joe Lest we forget, President Biden suggested...

“When you upload your DNA, you’re potentially becoming a genetic informant on the rest of your family.”— Law professor Elizabeth Joh “Guilt by association” has taken on new connotations in the technological age. All of those fascinating, genealogical searches that allow you to trace your family tree by way of a DNA sample can now be used against you and those you love. As of 2019, more than 26 million people had added their DNA to ancestry databases. It’s estimated those databases could top...

We all knew this was coming. In order to justify the forced vaccination of children, the powers that be would somehow have to overturn 15 months of observations that COVID is less a threat to children than the flu and that unvaccinated children are less at risk than vaccinated adults (100 times less at risk than seniors), even if we are to believe Pfizer's efficacy data. "CDC director reports spike in teen hospitalizations, urges parents to vaccinate kids over 12," was the headline at the Hill...