The RPI Challenge

Sixteen months into this virus, our government has nothing to offer us in terms of treatment in the hospital but remdesivir at $3,100 a dose and zero treatment options at the critical early stage, when serious complications can be pre-empted. Now, a new study from the University of Iowa shows what we knew all along – that remdesivir failed to reduce mortality one iota. Why are we to believe the same government entities about embracing the clot shots and shunning so many other cheaper and...

In less than six months in office President Joe Biden has already developed a national security policy that appears to lean strongly towards proactive use of military force in questionable circumstances, as if war is the answer to every problem. Biden should nevertheless be applauded for his persistence in withdrawing from Afghanistan after twenty years of ill-considered nation building, but even the departure from that country appears to be characterized by a lack of coordination, rather...

RPI 2019 Scholars lunching with US Rep. John Duncan, Jr. ***Apply HERE***We're back! The Ron Paul Institute is pleased to announce the second Ron Paul Scholars' Seminar. The first Seminar, held in 2019, was a great success and thanks to generous sponsors we are able to again welcome upper division undergraduate students and graduate students to participate in a day-long foreign affairs and national security "boot camp."The Seminar will take place on September 3rd at the Dulles Airport Marriott...

On Monday, June 28th, Fox host Tucker Carlson dropped a bomb mid-show, announcing he’d been approached by a “whistleblower” who told him he was being spied on by the NSA.“The National Security Agency is monitoring our electronic communications,” he said, “and is planning to leak them in an attempt to take this show off the air.”The reaction was swift, mocking, and ferocious. “Carlson is sounding more and more like InfoWars host and notorious conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones,” chirped CNN media...

There are no fact-checkers for victory laps. Last week, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo summarized his experience with the Covid-19 crisis: “Speaking for myself, it was a tremendous personal benefit.” Cuomo made that declaration in a speech concluding his one-year chairmanship of the National Governors Association. Because Cuomo’s spiel sought to rewrite history to exonerate politicians who ravaged Americans’ rights and liberties, it requires a rebuttal. Cuomo declared that “we maximized the moment...

While reading this week's Ron Paul Institute email newsletter, published by my colleague Daniel McAdams, I was struck by a quote that I've certainly read before, but it's just so relevant when reading it again today: “We know they are lying, they know they are lying, they know we know they are lying, we know they know we know they are lying, but they are still lying.” - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn What is it about lies? Why are we constantly tasked with wading through a sea of lies? Well, part of...

“Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficent.”—Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis A federal COVID-19 vaccination strike force may soon be knocking on your door, especially if you live in a community with low vaccination rates. Will you let them in? More to the point, are you required to open the door? The Biden Administration has announced that it plans to send federal “surge response teams” on a “targeted community...

Progressives who work to end individual rights violations committed by the NSA, FBI, DEA, CIA, and other federal agencies usually overlook, or even support, the routine violations of Americans’ rights by the IRS.For example, progressives rarely, if ever, speak out against the IRS’s targeting of the opponents of those in power. When liberal Democrats control the White House, the IRS targets advocates of free markets. When hawkish Republicans are in power, the IRS targets antiwar activists.The...

Wanted: a pediatrician who actually believes in science and not child abuse. My children are months overdue for their checkups because they are distraught about having to wear masks. The baby, who doesn't yet have to cover her breathing orifices, was traumatized at her recent visit by seeing everyone dressed like a mummy. How can it be that the doctors responsible most for the health of children can't read simple data and studies showing clearly that children are more at risk from the trauma...

Imagine a massive nuclear exchange between the United States and China. That obviously would not be a pretty sight for the people of either nation. As the mushroom clouds arose over both nations, imagine thinking to yourself: “All this because of a socialist road.” According to an article in the London Daily Mail, the governments of China and Montenegro entered into an agreement in which China agreed to build a road for Montenegro that would extend to the Serbian capital of Belgrade. The road...

“Endemicity” is not a word that rolls off the vernacular tongue. Still, its new prominence in the halls of governments around the world is a huge ray of hope. It means that governments have at long last begun to regard the pathogen as potentially a manageable part of our world. The word endemic is a contrast to pandemic. A new virus of the sort we’ve been through moves from the pandemic stage to a manageable stage – and so it has been for all of history. And by manageable, epidemiologists do...

The American people have increasingly become aware that government surveillance and corporate censorship have combined to keep people ignorant and controlled. What is taking place has generated some dark humor. A friend of mine, also a former CIA officer, wrote to me recently and said tongue-in-cheek that he retains a lot of respect for the Agency because it is the only major government national security entity that does not read our mail and emails. Those jobs are the responsibility of the...

“Beatings will continue until morale improves” has morphed from an old joke to the latest prescription for national salvation. “Compulsory National Service Could Unite America,” whooped a New York Times Op-ed headline last week. Prominent media outlets, think tanks, and too many professors and former generals are calling for government to commandeer a year of young Americans’ lives to forcibly restore their faith in the political system. Rep. John Delaney made a one-year mandatory service...

The British newspaper Daily Telegraph did some kite-flying in the weekend that London is considering open-ended deployment of a contingent of elite special forces to Afghanistan “ to provide training to Afghan units and deploy with them on the ground as advisers.” At the same time, the New York Times reported that White House approves Gen. Austin S. Miller, the top American commander in Afghanistan, staying on at his post for “at least a couple more weeks,” although US troop withdrawal is...

If Wednesday morning’s passive-voice ("Russian hackers are accused of"), evidence-free New York Times article titled "Attempted Hack of R.N.C. and Russian Ransomware Attack Test Biden" has a familiar ring, look who wrote it. The senior author is David Sanger, the NYT’s chief Washington correspondent. Based on Sanger’s unenviable record, the story he wrote with Nicole Perlroth can be dismissed as a proverbial nothingburger with Sanger sauce. The article claims that Russian hackers breached a...

The past year and a half has acted as a consistent test of our ability to process fact from fiction. Turn on the TV and you’ll surely run into a CDC or Big Pharma sponsored commercial demanding the population-wide embrace of the latest radical “solution” to the “scary virus” out there. Walk through any major American city and you’ll find yourself bombarded with advertisements and placards in both public and private spaces requesting your help with the campaign to “stop the spread” of COVID-19....