The RPI Challenge

At his wrap-up press conference in May, Robert Mueller sternly underscored what he called "the central allegation" of the two-year Russia probe. Namely, that the Russian government engaged in "multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election, and that allegation deserves the attention of every American." Yesterday’s gong show on Capitol Hill presented him with innumerable opportunities to defend that heavy duty proposition. Indeed, he had a massive TV audience before which to fortify...

“But these weren’t the kind of monsters that had tentacles and rotting skin…they were monsters with human faces, in crisp uniforms, marching in lockstep, so banal you don’t recognize them for what they are until it’s too late.” ― Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children Enough already. Enough with the distractions. Enough with the partisan jousting. Enough with the sniping and name-calling and mud-slinging that do nothing to make this country safer or freer or more just. We...

Recently released secret documents from Chinese company Huawei provide insights into how the US Empire rules the world. According to the Washington Post, the documents reveal that Huawei secretly helped North Korea “build and maintain the country’s commercial wireless network.” What’s wrong with that? you ask. It violates US sanctions against North Korea! What do US sanctions have to do with commercial relations between a Chinese company and North Korea? Well, as the ruler of the world — or,...

While Iran’s seizure of a British tanker near the Strait of Hormuz on Friday was a clear response to the British capture of an Iranian tanker in the Strait of Gibraltar on July 4, both the UK and U.S. governments are insisting that Iran’s operation was illegal while the British acted legally.The facts surrounding the British detention of the Iranian ship, however, suggest that, like the Iranian detention of the British ship, it was an illegal interference with freedom of navigation through an...

Volodymyr ZelenskyThe Ukraine, translated as “the borderlands,” lies between core Russia and the Europe's western states. It is a split country. Half the population speaks Russian as its first language. The industrialized center, east and south are culturally orthodox Russians. Some of its rural western parts were attached to the Ukraine only after World War II. They have historically a different culture. The US, supported by the EU, used this split - twice - to instigate “revolutions” that...

The UK got a taste of its own medicine this week as Iran seized a British tanker, the Stena Impero, just two weeks after UK Royal Marines seized a tanker near Gibraltar carrying two million barrels of Iranian oil. As could be predicted, the US and UK media are reporting Iran’s seizure of the Stena Impero as if it were something out of the blue, pushing the war propaganda that “we” have been attacked and must retaliate. Media criticism of the UK is limited to claims that it has not put enough...

You can tell that the establishment is getting nervous when in just the last month we see a grand effort to "re-invent" conservatism launched by the same kinds of ideologues who destroyed conservatism, and we see a new venture promising to promote a new foreign policy that turns away from "endless war and toward vigorous diplomacy in the pursuit of international peace" that just happens to be co-funded by an individual among those most responsible for pushing endless war and color revolutions...

John Bolton, White House national security adviser and notorious Iraq-era hawk, is a man on a mission. Given broad latitude over policy by Donald Trump, he is widely held to be driving the US confrontation with Iran. And in his passionate bid to tame Tehran, Bolton cares little who gets hurt – even if collateral damage includes a close ally such as Britain. So when Bolton heard British Royal Marines had seized an Iranian oil tanker off Gibraltar on America’s Independence Day, his joy was...

Donald Trump appears to be on the verge of doing what the "Never Trumpers" could not - destroy his Presidency and make re-election impossible. It all boils down to whether or not he decides to launch military strikes on Iran. The bottomline is this: if Trump launches military strikes against Iranian military targets it is very likely he will ignite a series of events that will escalate beyond his control, expose him as a paper tiger full of empty bellicose threats and risk a war with other...

I’ve had many strange experiences in my decades of covering intelligence affairs. These run from being invited to KGB HQ in Moscow, Chinese intelligence in Beijing, US intelligence in Virginia, Libyan intelligence in Tripoli, South African intelligence, and even Albanian intelligence in Tirana. But none was odder than the day I was invited to lunch in New York City with the by now notorious figure Jeffrey Epstein. The golden boy of Manhattan and Palm Beach society now sits in a grim jail cell...

Mark Esper is expected to be confirmed in coming days as the new US Secretary of Defense. His appointment is awaiting final Congressional approval after customary hearings this week before senators. The 55-year-old nominee put forward by President Trump was previously a decorated Lieutenant Colonel and has served in government office during the GW Bush administration. But what stands out as his most conspicuous past occupation is working for seven years as a senior lobbyist for Raytheon, the...

The US news media’s coverage of the Iran nuclear issue has been woefully off-kilter for many years. Now, however, those same outlets are contributing to the serious crisis building between Washington and Tehran. Iran has responded to Trump’s withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal by resuming the stockpiling of low enriched uranium, removing the cap on the level of uranium enrichment and resuming work at the Arak nuclear reactor, while making it very clear that those steps would be immediately...

Listening to President Trump accuse Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of supporting al-Qaeda reminds me of how conservatives behaved toward libertarians who dared talk about motive immediately after the 9/11 attacks. At the time of those attacks, some of us libertarians understood that this was a watershed event in US history, one that would inevitably adversely affect the rights and liberties of the American people. Fueled by deep anger and fear, the overwhelming sentiment among the American...

CNN has published an unbelievably brazen and dishonest smear piece on Julian Assange, easily the most egregious article of its kind since the notoriously bogus Assange-Manafort report by The Guardian last year. It contains none of the “exclusive” documents which it claims substantiate its smears, relying solely on vague unsubstantiated assertions and easily debunked lies to paint the WikiLeaks founder in a negative light.And let’s be clear right off the bat, it is most certainly a smear piece....