Before the COVID lockdowns, social media companies had started contracting with new third-parties organizations called fact-checkers to assist in “content creation.” Getting a pass meant the post or story was amplified but getting dinged for inaccuracy meant that the post would be throttled or deleted. For a while we believed it but certain revelations changed that. We came to realize that the posts labeled false were typically contrary to regime narratives. And a close look at the supposed...

(Note: This is taken from an exclusive article for RPI Subscribers. Subscribe for free here.)The 2023 NATO Summit at Vilnius, Lithuania, is now but a memory. If I could characterize the summit in just two words, I would say, "reality bites." And it bites both ways. On the one hand the US and its NATO allies came face to face with the reality that endless promises of "unlimited" military aid to Ukraine to defeat Russia would not achieve that goal. Five weeks of the much-anticipated Ukrainian...

We have previously discussed how activism in the media and corporations has triggered increasing public backlash. Social agendas have undermined trust and profits, but the pressure to pursue those goals remains high regardless of their cost. The same appears to be true for higher education. Universities and colleges have been criticized for purging their ranks of conservative or dissenting faculty while creating environments of political orthodoxy and viewpoint intolerance. A Gallup poll shows...

The hypothesis that the Anglo-Saxon axis is pivotal to the proxy war in Ukraine against Russia is only partly true. Germany is actually Ukraine’s second largest arms supplier, after the United States. Chancellor Olaf Scholz pledged a new arms package worth 700 million euros, including additional tanks, munitions and Patriot air defence systems at the Nato summit in Vilnius, putting Berlin, as he said, at the very forefront of military support for Ukraine.  German Defence Minister Boris...

Yesterday’s hearing with FBI Director Christopher Wray was another maddening experience of faux contrition and the open evasion. Wray apologized for violations that have already been established by courts or Congress (often over the best efforts of the FBI). However, on ample public evidence of new violations, Wray continued to use his favorite testimonial trilogy to block any questions: expressing (1) lack of knowledge, (2) ongoing investigation, and (3) promises of later answers or...

The New York Times has been churning out an amazing number of hit pieces on Robert F Kennedy Jr lately.  On Tuesday the Times published an audio essay titled “Why I Regret Debating Robert F. Kennedy Jr.” by opinion columnist Farhad Manjoo. Manjoo debated Kennedy in 2006 about the legitimacy of George W Bush’s 2004 win against John Kerry, believing that Kennedy’s skepticism of the election results was dangerous. “Disputing elections is just not good for democracy,” Manjoo says, joining the rest...

We’re all being targeted now. We’re all guilty until proven innocent now. And thanks to the 24/7 surveillance being carried out by the government’s spy network of fusion centers, we are all now sitting ducks, just waiting to be tagged, flagged, targeted, monitored, manipulated, investigated, interrogated, heckled and generally harassed by agents of the American police state. Although these precrime programs are popping up all across the country, in small towns and big cities, they are not...

Not surprisingly, right-wingers are celebrating the Supreme Court’s decision to declare affirmative-action policies at American universities to be unconstitutional. In the process, conservatives fail to recognize that they are, at the same time, celebrating the further destruction of American liberty and private-property rights. After all, why shouldn’t a private university, like Harvard, be free to establish any policy it wants for admitting students? It’s their university, isn’t it? Why...

Our governments intend to transfer decisions over our health, families, and societal freedoms to the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), whenever he or she declares it necessary. The success of this transfer of power depends on public ignorance of its implications, and of the nature of the WHO itself and its recent pandemic policy reversals. When the public understands, then its leaders are more likely to act in their interests rather than against them. In late 2019, the...

While Americans were enjoying hot dogs and fireworks this Fourth of July, federal Judge Terry A. Doughty commemorated Independence Day by striking a blow for the separation of big tech and state. Specifically, he issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting a number of government officials and agencies from communicating with social media companies to request they censor certain posts. Judge Doughty wrote that, “If the allegations made by Plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves...

Several crucial decisions likely will be made at this week’s NATO summit meeting. The most important of all involves Ukraine’s application to join the Alliance. Zealotry for Ukraine in some NATO capitals is so strong that that a path to membership for that country is being considered even in the midst of an ongoing war and unresolved territorial disputes. The most likely move would be to approve a Membership Action Plan (MAP) for Kyiv, which normally is the final substantive measure that an...

Sometimes one wishes Winston Churchill had left behind an evergreen quote in regard of Russian diplomacy as well, similar to his epic one on Russian politics, which still remains unbeatable — “Kremlin political intrigues are comparable to a bulldog fight under a rug. An outsider only hears the growling, and when he sees the bones fly out from beneath it is obvious who won.”  Renegade Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s defiance of the regime in Russia has apparently turned into a bulldog fight....

A woman walks amid destroyed Russian tanks in Bucha, in the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 3, 2022. By manhhai via Flickr.Let us consider the following paragraphs, which appear in the May 29 edition of The New Yorker: While Tynda and his team were fighting from the trench, long and powerful fusillades had issued from another Ukrainian position, on a hilltop behind them. I later went there with Tynda. In a blind overlooking the no man’s land stood an improbably antique contraption on...

How many Americans have actually bothered to read the Constitution, let alone the first ten amendments to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights (a quick read at 462 words)? Take a few minutes and read those words for yourself—rather than having some court or politician translate them for you—and you will be under no illusion about where to draw the line when it comes to speaking your mind, criticizing your government, defending what is yours, doing whatever you want on your own property, and...

As a long-standing free speech advocate, the last few years have been alarming and, frankly, depressing. The censorship efforts of the government are, unfortunately, not new. However, what is new is the support of the media and the Democratic Party in such censorship. That was on display on various channels after the recent opinion finding that the Biden Administration had violated First Amendment in “the most massive attack against free speech in United States history.” However, no one...

The former US president Donald Trump’s remarks regarding the failed coup attempt in Russia by Yevgeniy Prigozhin stood out for their sheer subtlety amidst the crass new western narrative that the dramatic events on June 23-24 highlighted “cracks” within the Russian system.  No one cares to explain what these “cracks” are but the coinage conveys that Russia is heading for implosion. Per Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin may have been “somewhat weakened”, creating an opportunity for the US...