The RPI Challenge

From day one of this pandemic, it was abundantly clear that outdoor transmission — aside from perhaps an infected individual screaming in someone's face — is essentially zero. Had the CDC properly conveyed this fact to the public, it could have preserved an amazing quality of life for so many people that would have included continuation of children's play and sports, seniors enjoying more friendship, fresh air, and vitamin D, and a happier, less depressed society. Yet, to this day, they are...

Most Americans likely assume that the mission of the US Coast Guard is to protect the coasts of the United State from maritime threats. Increasingly, though, that is no longer true, as Coast Guard vessels and personnel now routinely operate thousands of miles from the US homeland. Moreover, they frequently are not engaged in "defensive" missions, but are instead part and parcel of Washington’s arrogant force projection around the world. The traditional missions were not always sensible or...

Continuing his world tour doling out righteous lectures to the world, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday proclaimed — in a sermon you have to hear to believe — that few things are more sacred in a democracy than “independent journalism.” Speaking to Radio Free Europe, Blinken paid homage to "World Press Freedom Day”; claimed that “the United States stands strongly with independent journalism”; explained that "the foundation of any democratic system” entails "holding leaders...

Many policemen have been kicked under the bus. It is now more difficult to attract people to this profession; numerous retirements have occurred, and the quit rate is high. But we need police officers to protect the most vulnerable in society. How can we solve the hemorrhaging of this sector of the labor force? How, then, can policemen, white and black, but particularly the former, save themselves from injustice? Well, at least reduce the risks thereof while remaining in their present jobs? It...

Centers for Diseases Control (CDC) Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky has “recommended” that children wear masks while playing. Her offered reason is to ensure Covid is not spread by “heavy breathing” of children near each other while around a soccer ball.Dr. Walensky’s recommendation is one more example of Covid authoritarians' refusal to “listen to the science.” The science says no to lockdowns and masks. The masks are not blocking the very small viruses in “heavy breathing.” Dr. Walensky also...

President Biden has announced that America’s forever war in Afghanistan is finally coming to an end. He says that US forces will exit the country by next September 11. That’s a good thing. And it is long overdue. But there is one big problem with Biden’s timetable: It violates an agreement that the US government entered into with the Taliban to exit the country by May 1 of this year. Under that agreement, the Taliban agreed not to attack US troops prior to their scheduled departure on May 1....

One of the hallmarks of totalitarian systems is the criminalization of dissent. Not just the stigmatization of dissent or the demonization of dissent, but the formal criminalization of dissent, and any other type of opposition to the official ideology of the totalitarian system. Global capitalism has been inching its way toward this step for quite some time, and now, apparently, it is ready to take it. Germany has been leading the way. For over a year, anyone questioning or protesting the...

I once thought the internet would have the same effect on corporate media gatekeepers as the AK-47 had on colonial empires in Africa. That was before Big Tech turned that promise of freedom into the second coming of feudalism. Wednesday’s decision by Facebook’s “oversight board” – a transparent attempt to outsource responsibility for censorship to an international committee – to extend the ban on 45th US President Donald Trump is just the latest example, but by no means the most egregious....

Earlier this month, the conservative magazine known as The Spectator published an article with the absurd title “The Libertarian Case for Vaccine Passports.” The online version now bears the title “Vaccine Passports Are a Ticket to Freedom,” but the physical print version is perhaps more descriptive of what the author is trying to do. The author, a former Conservative politician named Matthew Parris, apparently believes that the forever lockdowns are an inescapable feature of reality, and that...

Maybe I would have better luck looking for Bigfoot in the forest than for an “old normal’ college or university in America. Attending a college or university has been very different for students in America over the last year-plus of coronavirus panic. There has been a huge increase in college students taking courses over the internet, missing out entirely on the experience of in-person classes and campus life. Yet, in some ways these students are the lucky ones. Students on college campuses...

One of the primary plagues of corporate journalism, which I have documented more times than I can count, just reared its ugly head again to deceive millions of people with fake news. When one large news outlet publishes a false story based on whispers from anonymous security state agents with the CIA or FBI, other news outlets quickly purport that they have “independently confirmed” the false story, in order to bolster its credibility (oh, it must be true since other outlets have also...

Trofim Lysenko was a government-sponsored agronomist and biologist favored by Stalin and the CCCP. By favored, I mean put in charge, given power to define the terms and settle the science, and by government edict, was not to be criticized by man or beast. You know, like Tony Fauci. In the Lysenko era, from 1927 through Stalin’s death in 1953, Soviet academia, media, and party publicly rejected the ideas of Darwin’s natural selection and Mendelian genetics in favor of the early 1800’s ideas of...

Aggression, in international politics, is commonly defined as the use of armed force against another sovereign state, not justified by self-defense or international authority. Any state being described as aggressive in foreign or international reporting, therefore, is almost by definition in the wrong. It’s a word that seems easy to apply to the United States, which launched 81 foreign interventions between 1946 and 2000 alone. In the 21st century, the United States has attacked, invaded or...

Even if “won,” endless wars like our 20 year assault on Afghanistan would not benefit our actual national interest in the slightest. So why do these wars continue endlessly? Because they are so profitable to powerful and well-connected special interests. In fact, the worst news possible for the Beltway military contractor/think tank complex would be that the United States actually won a war. That would signal the end of the welfare-for-the-rich gravy train.In contrast to the end of declared...