How the laptop revolution destroyed public education



A recent Fortune magazine article made waves with a grim admission: After more than $30 billion spent flooding classrooms with laptops and tablets, standardized scores keep sliding. Worse, neuroscientists now link more classroom screen time to lower performance. The device meant to modernize learning may be helping to unmake it.

Schools rushed into a technological revolution without asking the most basic question: What does this do to a child’s mind? Many teachers saw the answer firsthand and in real time. Administrators and “experts” ignored them because the fad sounded like “progress.”

A concerted push to remove screens from classrooms needs to begin now. Put the devices where they belong: limited tools, not the center of learning.

I taught history and civics in Florida public schools as the laptop trend took hold. Computers had sat in classrooms since my own childhood, but they played a supporting role. A few desktops in the back helped with research. A computer lab handled bigger projects. Most learning still happened on paper with books, notes, and conversation.

Then the Chromebook arrived: cheap, durable, limited, and perfect for one thing — living inside a web browser. Suddenly a district could put a machine not just in every room but in the hands of every student.

Buzzwords beat judgment

Public-school administrators love buzzwords. “Technological literacy” sounds noble, as if every ninth grader is training for Silicon Valley while working on their grammar assignment. Google did not just sell discounted laptops. It supplied a full ecosystem: Docs, Sheets, Slides, Classroom. The whole apparatus of schooling migrated into Alphabet’s software suite. Few people in the system asked why a private company wanted to become the operating system of childhood.

The laptop push also fit the religion of metrics. District offices love anything that produces dashboards, timestamps, and “engagement” graphs. A worksheet completed on paper frustrates the spreadsheet priesthood. A worksheet completed on a Chromebook generates data. The device did not just enter the classroom; it entered the managerial imagination, where metrics matter more than minds.

Once laptops became ubiquitous, the problems announced themselves. The deeper the integration, the harder it became to control.

Cheating became routine. Students searched answers in seconds. The larger problem went beyond quizzes. Googling replaced thinking. Kids refused to read because they assumed a quick search and a copy-paste counted as “learning.” Wikipedia became the default authority. Students stopped vetting anything because they treated the first search result as truth. Even writing shifted. Instead of building an argument, students stitched together paragraphs from the internet and hoped the teacher felt too tired to fight.

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Cemile Bingol via iStock/Getty Images

The distraction machine

Schools tried parental controls. Teenagers treated those controls as a challenge. When thousands of bored adolescents share a building, they collaborate. A new filter went up; within days, kids found a workaround. Soon the screens again showed games, movies, even pornography — during class, in plain view, behind a pretense of “work.”

Students used shared Google docs as a covert messaging system. They gossiped, bullied, and planned actual crimes while keeping a document open to look studious. My school eventually held assemblies to remind students that everything typed into a document leaves a record and that bragging about criminal activity or sexual escapades can end up as evidence.

All of that raised another issue: privacy and capture. Google did not subsidize devices and software out of corporate charity. By making Google search and Google apps the center of a child’s information life, the system trained dependency. Google finds the truth. Google organizes the truth. Google presents the truth. A student’s education happens inside a Google ghetto. Pretend the company is not collecting that data if you want, but the incentives cut the other way.

Screens also fed the attention crisis. Administrators told teachers to stop showing videos longer than three minutes without pausing to explain because students could not stay focused. The device that was supposed to expand horizons kept shrinking attention spans. Teachers began competing with the entire internet for a child’s attention, and no lesson plan can win that contest for long.

Locked into the system

The system made escape difficult. Florida went all-in on Chromebooks and tied them to everything. Standardized tests moved entirely onto laptops. “Test prep” software got woven into daily coursework. Students with accommodations or limited English got pushed toward the device as a universal crutch. Denying a Chromebook got treated as denying an education. Teachers who resisted risked discipline.

I reached a point where my students mattered more than compliance. I rebuilt my classroom around paper, books, and discussion. Students used Chromebooks only for mandated testing and accommodations we could not meet otherwise.

The shift showed results fast. Students engaged more. Distraction dropped. Discipline improved. More assignments got finished. Grades rose.

Then COVID-19 struck.

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Remote learning turned the screen into the classroom itself. Even Florida, which resisted lockdown hysteria, shifted much of schooling online. Learning fell off a cliff. The lockdowns devastated achievement, but the damage did not end when students returned in person. After COVID, it became nearly impossible to pry students, parents, and administrators away from screen-based schooling. Digital integration became mandatory. No exceptions.

Now the corporate press arrives to play cleanup. Reporters discover the failure well after the money has been spent, the infrastructure has hardened, and a generation has been trained to treat a browser as a brain.

A way back

Public education is stuffed with managerial drones who chase consensus and trends while ignoring what helps students. The bureaucracy will keep this program alive through sheer inertia even as evidence piles up. Parents and lawmakers need to force a reset: paper-based instruction as the default, screens as a tightly limited accommodation, and tests that reward reading and writing instead of clicking. Districts should stop outsourcing childhood to Big Tech, stop laundering ideology through “digital citizenship,” and start treating attention as a scarce resource worth defending.

A concerted push to remove screens from classrooms needs to begin now. Start with elementary grades. Bring back books. Bring back handwriting. Bring back sustained attention. Put the devices where they belong: limited tools, not the center of learning.

Kids learn slower, but they learn for real.

Glenn Beck sounds the alarm on Apple’s digital ID: ‘Control of absolutely everything’



Apple has introduced its own digital ID, which is connected to Apple Wallet — but Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck is not thrilled to hear about the company's latest advancement, calling it a “very bad idea.”

“Digital ID is the first thing. Then it includes your medical records. It includes all your health — everything. It will give you access to the hospitals or not access to the hospitals. It will allow you to buy things or not buy things,” Glenn explains.

“It’ll allow you to access online or not access online. It is control of absolutely everything. And that’s in the design, and they talk about it openly,” he adds.


After the tyranny displayed during COVID, Glenn is among those most skeptical of advancements like digital ID.

“Presenting the new Apple digital ID,” Glenn says sarcastically. “Now at the TSA checkpoints in more than 250 airports all across the U.S., you can present your digital ID at TSA checkpoints and get right onto that plane.”

While Apple claims the digital ID is “not a replacement” for a physical passport, it does add an official government ID to a user’s Apple wallet.

“It does sort of sound appealing, doesn’t it? I mean, just speaking frankly for a moment,” BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere chimes in.

While Glenn agrees that it does “sound appealing,” he points out that the end result would be anything but.

“I have to tell you, when you start putting everything, all records, all passports — it is your one universal key, and it’s tied directly to online, where it’s tracking everything, everywhere you go, every dollar you spend,” he says. “This is just a very bad idea.”

“There’s a story … it’s called the book of Revelation. I mean, how much clearer do you have to be, where you can’t go anywhere, you can’t buy anything, unless you have the mark. I’m not saying Apple is coming up with the mark of the beast, but this is the technology that sure kind of fits it,” he adds.

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Woke Colorado Dems target natural gas: 70% of homes face skyrocketing bills for unreliable electric heat



Colorado is the eighth-largest natural gas-producing state in the U.S., boasting 10 underground natural gas storage fields with approximately 141 billion cubic feet of combined storage capacity. Roughly seven out of 10 Colorado households use natural gas as their primary home heating source.

Despite the Centennial State's bounty of natural gas and the super-majority of Colorado households' reliance on the affordable warmth it provides, officials are pushing for an electrification of heating in the state and putting utilities in a position where they'll soon have to begin removing customers en masse.

'You're increasing the load on electrification without there being any way to fill it.'

State Democrats successfully passed legislation in 2021 aimed at reducing so-called greenhouse gas emissions through regulatory changes affecting gas distribution utilities.

To satisfy this law, the commissioners on the Colorado Public Utilities Commission — all of whom were appointed by Democratic Gov. Jared Polis — have solicited and approved multiple "clean heat" plans.

Earlier this month, the PUC set GHG emission reduction targets impacting three investor-owned gas utilities — Atmos Energy, Black Hills Energy, and Xcel Energy — requiring them to cut the carbon emissions from their systems by 4% this year; by 22% over the next five years; and by 41% over the next 10 years.

While the commissioners declined to set targets beyond 2035, they noted in their formal decision that "because Colorado has a statewide goal of reducing greenhouse gas pollution by 100% by 2050, as compared to a 2005 baseline, we emphasize that clean heat plans submitted by gas utilities must account for that statutorily established future target."

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Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Image

Colorado Energy Office director Will Toor is among those who have expressed skepticism about the aggressive nature of the switchover from natural gas to the state's already strained electric grid, a system that Xcel Energy indicated will likely face skyrocketing demand in the form of 400,000 electric vehicles and 300,000 new heat pumps by 2029.

"The 41% target, from our perspective, is a pretty challenging target for utilities," Toor told the Colorado Sun. "We certainly hope that utilities get there. I think we thought that 30% was probably more realistic."

The Colorado Energy Office and the state health department's Air Pollution Control Division reportedly asked for a 30% target by 2035.

In order to meet the new targets, the PUC noted that "utilities can propose to meet the clean heat targets using combinations of energy efficiency, electrification, recovered methane, green hydrogen, thermal energy, and pyrolysis of tires."

Alternatively "customers may voluntarily participate in these plans by taking advantage of rebates and incentives to adopt electric heat pumps or complete energy efficiency upgrades in their homes and businesses," said the PUC.

Before incentives, customers looking to satisfy climate alarmists by electrifying their gas appliances and homes are looking at costs in excess of $20,000 per home, Xcel noted in testimony about the state's so-called clean heat plans.

Jake Fogleman, director of policy at the Independence Institute, a Colorado-based think tank, noted that the targets "will necessarily require removing customers from the system."

"Utilities like Xcel, Black Hills, and Atmos may be able to nibble around the edges of the target by relying on recovered methane, improved pipeline leak detection and repair, and other non-demand-destroying strategies, but such approaches will not be enough to comply with state law," wrote Fogleman. "This all but guarantees that gas customers around the state will soon face higher utility bills to subsidize households into switching from gas to electric heating and appliances."

Those who can afford to make the switch will likely still be looking at jacked prices. Fogleman noted that last year, "Electricity was more than four times more expensive on average per unit of energy delivered to Colorado households" than natural gas.

Jon Caldara, president of the Independence Institute, told the Denver Post, "They're trying to regulate us away from any fossil fuels and taking away our appliances and our heaters. You're increasing the load on electrification without there being any way to fill it."

Republican state Rep. Ty Winter told the Post that when constituents raise concerns about the climate alarmist requirements, he tells them that "the only way to fix this is at the ballot box."

"We’re going to fight this tooth and nail, and we’re going to use every avenue we have," said Winter.

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Digital tyrants want your face, your ID … and your freedom



Thomas Sowell’s warning fits the digital age with brutal precision: There are no solutions, only trade-offs. When governments regulate technology, they seize your privacy first. Every “safety” mandate becomes an excuse to collect more personal data, and the result is always the same. Bureaucrats claim to protect you while making you more vulnerable.

Age-verification laws illustrate this perfectly. Discord’s recent breach — more than 70,000 stolen government ID photos taken from a third-party vendor — shows how quickly privacy collapses once platforms are forced to gather sensitive data.

Millions of citizens should not be forced to trade away privacy because policymakers refuse to acknowledge the risks.

To comply with the U.K.’s new Online Safety Act, Discord began collecting users’ documentation. That data became a target, and once breached, attackers reportedly demanded a multimillion-dollar ransom and threatened to publish the stolen IDs. Discord failed to monitor its vendor’s security practices, and thousands paid the price.

Age-verification mandates require digital platforms to confirm a user’s age before granting access to specific content or services. That means uploading government IDs or submitting to facial scans. The stated goal is child safety. The actual effect is compulsory data surrender. These laws normalize the idea that governments can force citizens to hand over sensitive information just to use the internet.

Centralized data collection creates a jackpot for cybercriminals. As the Discord breach proves, one compromise exposes thousands — or millions — of users. Criminals can sell this information, reuse it for identity theft, or weaponize it for blackmail. The problem isn’t a one-off failure. It is structural. Age verification mandates require platforms to create consolidated databases of personally identifying information, which become single points of catastrophic failure.

The libertarian Cato Institute captures the problem: “Requiring age verification creates a trove of attractive data for hackers that could put broader information about users, particularly young users, at risk.”

Governments may insist that the Discord breach was an outlier. It wasn’t. Breaches of sensitive information are predictable in systems designed to aggregate it. Even if the motives behind the U.K.’s age-verification regime were noble, undermining privacy to advance those aims is a trade-off free societies should reject. That is why the Online Safety Act triggered an outcry far beyond the U.K.

And, as usual, legislative mandates fail to achieve their stated goals. Days after the OSA took effect, VPN downloads surged as users — including children — bypassed verification systems. Laura Tyrylyte, Nord Security’s head of public relations, told Wired that “whenever a government announces an increase in surveillance, internet restrictions, or other types of constraints, people turn to privacy tools.” Predictably, age-verification laws encourage evasion instead of compliance.

RELATED: The UK wants to enforce its censorship laws in the US. The First Amendment begs to differ.

mikkelwilliam via iStock/Getty Images

The pattern is simple: Age-verification laws degrade privacy, heighten the risk of identity theft, and fail to keep minors off restricted platforms. They make the internet less safe for everyone.

Meanwhile, policymakers remain determined to spread these mandates in the name of protecting children. The U.K. pioneered the model. Many other governments followed. Twenty-five U.S. states have adopted similar laws. The list grows each month.

But governments cannot treat data breaches as acceptable collateral damage. Millions of citizens should not be forced to trade away privacy because policymakers refuse to acknowledge the risks. The result of this approach will be more surveillance, more breaches, more stolen personal data, and a steady erosion of civil liberties.

Privacy is the backbone of liberty in a digital world. Thomas Jefferson’s warning deserves repetition: “The natural progress of things is for government to gain ground and for liberty to yield.”

Age-verification mandates accelerate that progress — and citizens pay the price.

The gatekeepers are fighting each other now



For most of human history, people could only dream of having ready access to all the world’s knowledge. Books were highly prized rarities, literacy was uncommon, and news could take weeks or months to arrive. The idea that the sum of human experience could fit into a little box in everyone’s pocket once sounded utopian — a paradise of informed, free citizens.

Instead, when handed access to everything, most people went looking for someone to tell them what to think.

The information age isn’t a utopia or a nightmare — it’s a permanent revolution. And it’s only getting wilder from here.

Humans are social creatures, political animals, as Aristotle observed. We crave belonging more than truth. We need a story about our place in the social order, status to pursue, and a circle to protect. Our minds aren’t wired to handle thousands of relationships. Dunbar’s number — about 150 — marks the natural limit of our social world. Online, we can connect with millions, but our capacity to process that much humanity collapses. We stop seeing people as people.

The same is true of information. In theory, access to all knowledge should make us wiser. In practice, it’s like drinking from a fire hose. Facts alone don’t illuminate anything without context, and the flood is too vast for anyone to master.

So people specialize. Like workers on an assembly line, each focuses on one task and trusts others to handle the rest. Expertise becomes a kind of currency, and every expert becomes a gatekeeper, a choke point through which understanding must pass.

Manufacturing consent

Control over that flow of information is control over perception itself. From the birth of mass media, political actors understood this. In “Public Opinion” (1922), journalist Walter Lippmann argued that elites must guide the public toward the “right” decisions because ordinary citizens couldn’t process the flood of modern information. Governments — including our own — and corporations eagerly agreed, building propaganda systems to shape consent.

Mass communication democratized information but kept control in a few hands. Printing presses, radio networks, television studios, and movie production required massive capital. The means of communication were concentrated in a small elite that decided what counted as “truth.” These media barons and their favored experts built a system in which opinion was managed from the top down. The gatekeepers defined what the public got to see, hear, and believe.

For decades, political and media elites relied on this system to shape public sentiment. Academics, think-tank analysts, and professional commentators framed policy for the masses. People felt informed while repeating narratives crafted by others. The monopoly on expert opinion kept both left- and right-wing elites secure.

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Blaze Media Illustration

Then came the internet, which shattered the old paradigm and plunged our system into chaos. Anyone with a microphone and a laptop could broadcast to the world. Legacy media cut costs, and now its anchors sit in home offices on the same streaming platforms as the amateurs they used to mock. The line between credentialed gatekeeper and average guy with an opinion has all but disappeared.

The result? Panic.

Mutating information war

Liberal elites were horrified to see Donald Trump, JD Vance, and countless populists bypass their filters and speak directly to millions of people. Podcasts hosted by comedians or outsiders broke through censorship walls. Conservative leaders cheered — until their own control started slipping. As legacy conservative networks fractured and independent creators rose, the movement’s “approved experts” lost their monopoly too.

Now both sides are scrambling to rebuild the gates. The establishment insists that chaos proves we need “trustworthy experts.” But the expert class discredited itself, and the internet made gatekeeping technologically impossible. The average citizen may not always discern truth from falsehood, but the public no longer trust those who claim to decide it for them.

The information war isn’t ending. It’s mutating. Every collapse of authority spawns a new order, and every new order fights to become the next gatekeeper. Unless governments impose hard censorship, as Europe has begun to do, the chaos will continue. The information age isn’t a utopia or a nightmare — it’s a permanent revolution. And it’s only getting wilder from here.

Glenn Beck issues chilling warning: ‘This is the new nuclear weapon’



While the Israel-Hamas ceasefire is dominating the news cycle and letting citizens of the world breathe mass sighs of relief, Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck believes there’s something brewing silently — and we should remain on our toes.

“Beijing just tightened its grip on rare earth elements. These are the minerals that make absolutely everything possible: your smartphone, your electric car, your missile defense system, your refrigerator. Everything depends on these rare earth minerals,” Glenn says.

“China, because of our inaction and stupid policies over the last couple of decades, control now 80% of the world’s supply chain. That cannot stand. Now, what they’re doing is they’re choking it off. They are now closing it up, and they are threatening the West, ‘No more rare earth minerals,’” he explains.

“If that happens, we cannot defend ourself,” he adds.


Glenn also notes that out of nowhere, the Pentagon has made a billion-dollar emergency order for those same rare earth minerals.

“That’s not normal. That’s not paperwork. That is the sound of a military quietly preparing for something — a shortage, possibly in a storm,” Glenn says.

In addition, JPMorgan Chase has just announced a $1.5 trillion investment plan in security and resilience.

“That’s not going to mom-and-pop shops. That’s not going to community loans. That money is being funneled straight into AI, defense manufacturing, and critical minerals. It’s as if the Pentagon and Wall Street just linked arms and decided to build a fortress economy together,” Glenn explains.

And interestingly, Glenn notes that the Dutch government has seized control of the Chinese-owned chipmaker on its own soil.

“They invoked emergency powers and nationalized the company to stop the Chinese influence over the semiconductor industry,” he says.

“That’s not good. Four stories, four continents, four quiet tremors in the ground. When you weave them all together, that’s when you begin to understand what all of this means,” Glenn continues.

And what it means is that “the old world as we know it is dying.”

“The world of free markets, the world of open trade, individual enterprise, the world that lifted billions out of poverty is being replaced now, slowly but surely, by something new. And this one is being done in the name of security,” he explains.

“This is the government aligning themselves with tech, rare earth minerals, et cetera, et cetera, to be able to win the AI war. All of this is a single unspoken motive, and that is the race to dominate artificial intelligence,” he continues.

“This is the new arms race. This is the new Manhattan Project, the new nuclear weapon, except this is a million times more enslaving than nuclear weapons could ever hope to be,” he adds.

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Mass immigration means dependence, and dependence means control



Power always seeks to expand. It never halts for principles or words on paper, but only for rival powers strong enough to resist it. Those rivals must have deep roots, independent resilience, and the ability to demand loyalty. They must project sovereignty in ways the state cannot easily replicate, establishing spheres of influence that can resist government overreach without ever firing a shot.

Historically, strong communities provided this check. Their religions and folkways became the rhythms of life, passed down through generations. These beliefs drew authority from transcendent sources no earthly power could reproduce. Families built churches, schools, libraries, civic organizations, unions, and fraternities to preserve culture, transmit values, and care for members.

Communities with shared traditions can limit state commands. But diversity dissolves those limits.

Such communities formed spheres of sovereignty. They made competing demands on their members and provided services the state could not: spiritual grounding, mutual aid, a sense of identity. Membership required specific behaviors to remain in good standing, norms the state could not easily reshape. Because traditions were deeply ingrained, the state had to respect them or risk serious resistance.

Over time, these communities often accumulated wealth. Virtue and stability generated surplus capital, which supported robust institutions and provided safety nets. Their members no longer relied on government in times of need. They relied on each other. These were the kulaks — the middle class — people whose independence created natural barriers to state expansion. Not atomized “self-reliance,” but communal reliance: stability rooted in culture and habit. That is precisely why governments sought to break them.

High and low vs. the middle

The political theorist Bertrand de Jouvenel, in "On Power," described the classic formula: high and low versus the middle. The ruling class always wants more power, but the middle class resists. The poor, being dependent and disorganized, cannot mount opposition. Only the middle class, with property, institutions, and traditions, can stand in the way. To expand power, rulers must dissolve these spheres of sovereignty.

Their method is alliance with the dependent lower classes. Sometimes this means the domestic underclass. But that group still shares culture and traditions with the middle, making it less reliable as a tool. Importing a foreign underclass works better. Immigrants lack roots in the land or its traditions. They can be counted on to side with rulers against the entrenched middle.

Mass immigration delivers cheap labor to the wealthy while creating a new political client base. The upper class benefits from gardeners and nannies. Politicians gain millions of new voters to whom they can promise state benefits.

Dependence as a weapon

Immigrant groups rarely possess cohesive culture or resilient institutions. They lack roots, leisure, or unity to resist. They depend on the ruling class for entry, employment, rights, and welfare. Many don’t speak the language. They need the state to survive — and they reward the state with loyalty. This isn’t passive dependence. To succeed, they actively require the state to expand.

To serve this new underclass, rulers pillage the middle. Kulaks are blamed for inequality. They are guilted, taxed, or coerced into surrendering what they built. That wealth is transferred to immigrants, cementing the state’s power over both. The middle grows poorer, loses property, closes institutions, and becomes more unstable. Families that once resisted government control now depend on it.

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Blaze Media illustration

Mass immigration also erodes culture, another obstacle to power. Communities with shared traditions can limit state commands. But diversity dissolves those limits. Forced to mingle with newcomers, the shared identity frays. Cultural separation becomes taboo. Institutions that once passed on values and provided aid collapse. Charities are drained. Public spaces decay. And those who maintained them see no reason to sacrifice for strangers.

The state ensures that escape is impossible. First taboo, then law, forbids communities to separate and reform. Those who try are smeared as bigots, then prosecuted. The middle is barred from reconstituting its way of life. Virtue fades. The spheres of sovereignty are gone. Everyone becomes a rootless dependent, giving the state a blank check to expand its power.

Why immigration became policy

This is why mass immigration became a priority across Western liberal democracies. It doesn’t just dismantle barriers to state power; it builds a machine to demand more of it. Rulers gain cheap labor, grateful voters, and excuses to raid the middle. The cost is cultural dissolution, but to elites that is a feature, not a bug.

If we want an elite that serves its people rather than undermines them, we must choke off this supply of outside populations. Stop importing clients. Stop dissolving communities. Restore the middle class and the spheres of sovereignty that protect liberty. Only then can the leviathan be caged.

The Russia hoax and COVID lies share the same deep-state fingerprints



“Conspiracy theory” is the go-to smear against those of us who questioned any aspect of the government’s authoritarian response to the COVID-19 pandemic. But as the great Austrian economist Murray Rothbard once observed, the smear serves one purpose: to divert the public’s attention away from the truth.

“An attack on ‘conspiracy theories,’” Rothbard writes in “The Anatomy of the State,” means that the subjects of a regime “will become more gullible in believing the ‘general welfare’ reasons that are always put forth by the State for engaging in any of its despotic actions.”

The democratization of information means that censorship just doesn’t work as well as it used to.

“A ‘conspiracy theory,’” he continues, “can unsettle the system by causing the public to doubt the state’s ideological propaganda.”

The more I dig into the origins of the COVID pandemic, the more “despotic” our state seems to become — and the more “conspiratorial” I get.

Unsettling the system

I am trying to put together the final pieces of the puzzle of what I consider among the greatest public policy scandals of my lifetime — not only who did it, but more importantly, why would they do it?

A few months ago, I spent a day with Matt Taibbi, the iconoclastic muckraker and “Twitter Files” reporter, for the latest episode of my BlazeTV investigative series, “The Coverup.”

As he dug through the trove of emails and texts, Taibbi discovered the conspiracy to blacklist and silence Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the subject of the first episode of “The Coverup” and now the head of the National Institutes of Health. Taibbi soon learned that the same tactics and tools — and even many of the very same deep-state actors — have their fingerprints all over both the Russia collusion hoax and the COVID cover-up.

A precedent for censorship

Recently released documents from Director of National Security Tulsi Gabbard reveal that the so-called Russia collusion hoax wasn’t just wrong — it was deliberate. The Obama administration orchestrated the fabrication, pushing U.S. intelligence agencies to leak a report suggesting Vladimir Putin had helped Donald Trump steal the 2016 election.

That leak, repeated endlessly by the press, fueled a national narrative branding Trump’s presidency as illegitimate — despite those same agencies having already dismissed the claim.

This kind of manipulation would be outrageous if it weren’t so familiar.

Five years after the COVID lockdowns stripped millions of Americans of basic liberties, we’re still uncovering how the deep state used propaganda to silence dissent. Throughout the pandemic, scientists and doctors raised alarms about the damage lockdowns would cause — and did cause. Some of the world’s most respected experts signed the Great Barrington Declaration to oppose the government’s heavy-handed response.

But the public never heard from them. Bureaucrats and media allies moved swiftly to smear, suppress, and sideline these voices using one of the oldest authoritarian tactics: control of information.

In fairness, public health agencies didn’t have to twist many arms. The legacy media followed their lead willingly — even when the guidance contradicted itself or defied basic logic.

But unlike the days of Project Mockingbird, when the CIA could shape coverage by nudging the New York Times or CBS, controlling the old guard wasn’t enough. The rise of social media — decentralized, fast-moving, and open to anyone with a computer or phone — posed a new challenge. The administration needed a more aggressive strategy to dominate the narrative.

Strong-arming social media

In episode 5 of “The Coverup,” I ask Taibbi how they pulled it off. As one of the first journalists to dig into the Twitter Files, Taibbi exposed the machinery behind the censorship regime. Americans suspected that platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube were suppressing dissent during COVID. But the Twitter Files confirmed what many feared: They weren’t acting alone. They took orders from the FBI directly.

And these weren’t polite requests, either. When the government “suggested” something, tech companies treated it as a command.

It all traces back to — surprise, surprise — the Russia hoax.

In 2017, Congress hauled tech executives into hearings and accused them of letting Russian disinformation run wild. Essentially, they were given an offer they couldn’t refuse: Allow the government to play a role in content moderation or prepare to be regulated into submission.

RELATED: On the 9th anniversary of Russiagate, the hoax is finally crumbling

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

Their surrender gave U.S. intelligence agencies de facto control over what Americans could say online. The feds told platforms which posts to delete, which users to silence, and how to suppress the rest. You could post your opinion — as long as no one could see it. “Shadow bans” became the preferred method of censorship: clean, quiet, and deniable.

The silver lining

Thanks to Taibbi — and a handful of journalists who still value truth over access — we now see how the government sold Americans on fiction. Russia hacked the election. COVID came from a bowl of bat soup. Question either and you’d vanish from the digital public square.

Millions believed these lies. And under their influence, they did real damage — locking down schools, closing businesses, and sowing doubt about fair elections.

But truth has a way of leaking out.

It’s taken time, but the lies are unraveling. And that’s the silver lining. In a world where information moves faster than censors can keep up, suppression doesn’t work like it used to. So long as we have truth-tellers willing to dig and defy — like Taibbi — the regime won’t have the last word.

We won’t get fooled again.

Episode 5 of “The Coverup” premieres Thursday, July 31.

Why the Epstein story cannot be buried



Why does the story of Jeffrey Epstein matter so deeply to the American right? Why does it persist, years after his death, as a source of outrage, fascination, and dread? Why is the call to “move on” met with such visceral resistance?

The answer lies in what Epstein’s case reveals. It is not merely the record of one man’s depravity or even the scale of the crimes committed. It is a window into a concealed architecture of unaccountable power, intelligence protection, institutional rot, and elite impunity. For many on the right, it confirms long-standing fears about how power in the United States is really organized and who it is designed to serve.

These questions strike at the heart of an older conservative concern: Who governs? And who is permitted to ask?

These concerns are hardly new. They are the very ones that helped elect Donald Trump, and they have shaped conservative criticism of the American regime since the New Deal. The Epstein affair provides a rare glimpse into the soft underbelly of the administrative state. At some point, moral clarity demands that we stop parsing and start acting. This is a time to strike, to “fire for effect.”

From the expansion of the federal bureaucracy under Franklin D. Roosevelt to the postwar rise of the national security state, conservatives have warned about the merger of government power with private influence. The most dangerous feature of that merger is not the bureaucracy itself, but the consolidation of authority among entrenched intelligence services, elite financial networks, and foreign-aligned interests. These actors operate in close coordination, beyond democratic oversight, and with the consistent protection of institutional power.

Epstein is valuable because he exposes that structure in plain sight. He had no obvious source of legitimate wealth. His hedge fund, insofar as it existed, had only one known client. Yet, he moved in elite circles, befriended presidents and princes, and maintained access to corporate titans and scientific institutions.

Most disturbingly, Epstein appears to have operated a long-standing sexual blackmail network. The question is not merely how he got away with it, but who allowed him to do so.

Staggering implications

The answers are deeply unsettling. The FBI curtailed its investigations. The CIA has remained silent. The media showed little interest and declined to pursue the story in any depth. Meanwhile, the possible involvement of foreign intelligence services (especially those operating through figures like Leslie Wexner) has been treated as politically untouchable. This refusal to investigate is not born of ignorance or oversight. It is protective behavior. It signals that the wrong people are implicated.

Even if one adopts the minimalist position, that Epstein was not a formal intelligence asset, the implications remain staggering. Why would a known predator be permitted to operate so openly, with so many connections to power? Is the American state unable or unwilling to act when the guilty hold the right kinds of passports or relationships? Have we reached a point where elite networks are simply beyond reach, shielded by layers of shared interest and mutual compromise?

These questions strike at the heart of an older conservative concern: Who governs? And who is permitted to ask?

RELATED: The White House will need to do plenty more to get past Epstein

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Epstein’s case offers a rare and ugly answer. What it uncovers is not a fever dream of conspiracy but an observable mode of governance that relies on secrecy, compromise, and shared immunity. It appears that intelligence actors have conducted operations not only abroad but also inside the United States, targeting the American elite itself. An immoral country condones sexual blackmail as a mechanism of influence and protection, integrated into a broader system of control ... ironically an indication of a country spinning out of control.

A complicated inquiry

One can find instructive parallels in the operations of Israeli intelligence during the 1980s and 1990s. Under the direction of Mossad officials such as Efraim Halevy, Israel conducted systematic surveillance and developed personal leverage over Syrian elites. These methods included financial inducements, covert recordings, and exposure of private behavior. Such tactics are common in international espionage and are recognized tools of statecraft.

What makes Epstein so alarming is the apparent use of similar techniques within the United States, directed inward rather than outward. The uncomfortable possibility is that foreign intelligence services (including Israeli cutouts operating through figures like Wexner) were not merely bystanders, but active participants or beneficiaries of the Epstein operation. That possibility remains largely uninvestigated, not because it lacks merit, but because it threatens established political alignments.

Wexner’s history as a major donor to Republican candidates is one example of how these relationships complicate any honest inquiry. For a sitting senator or rising intelligence officer, confronting these questions comes at great cost.

This story is not important only because of the criminal sexual behavior it contains. That abuse, particularly of underage girls, is monstrous and demands full exposure and justice. But Epstein’s operation mattered at a higher level because those crimes were used to build networks of control. They were not incidental. They were instrumental. This is the cold logic of espionage deployed inside a supposedly self-governing republic.

RELATED: The conspiracy theorist is the last honest man

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For the political right, Epstein represents a grim vindication. The warnings about politicized intelligence services, compromised elites, and foreign impunity were long dismissed as paranoia or fringe thinking. Yet, the details of this case suggest those warnings were not only plausible, but understated.

Consider the unequal application of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Consider the way domestic allies are hounded while foreign-aligned actors operate with impunity. Consider the cultural message that those with the right credentials and connections will never face consequences. Epstein’s story reveals the inner wiring of a regime that no longer pretends to serve the citizen, only itself.

Denial becomes confirmation

Was Epstein a direct employee of a domestic or foreign intelligence apparatus? I highly doubt it. My best guess is he was a very well-connected money launderer with a psychopathic lack of empathy who was therefore the perfect tool for intelligence gathering and manipulation. He operated in the open, however, and was criminally harmful to some of the most vulnerable U.S. citizens. But we have seen how little citizenship means in the modern internationalist cosmopolitan soup.

Efforts to bury this story are morally callous and institutionally suicidal. Each attempt to suppress, ignore, or discredit the legitimate questions raised by the Epstein case erodes the remaining credibility of the agencies involved. The denial becomes confirmation. The silence becomes testimony. The cover-up increases the criminality, the offense to the American people.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower (R) warned in his farewell address of a rising military-industrial complex. But the deeper danger he identified was the fusion of state power, private capital, and unaccountable influence. Epstein should be understood as a grotesque product of that fusion. Refusing to confront it will not preserve institutional authority. It will ensure its collapse.

In the end, the Epstein story is not simply salacious. It is foundational. It forces a reckoning with how the American regime truly operates and what moral and political compromises have become routine. That is why so many are eager to see it buried.

And that is precisely why it must not be.

Can artificial intelligence help us want better, not just more?



The notification chimes. Another algorithmically selected product appears in your feed, something you never knew you wanted until this moment. You pause, finger hovering over the “buy now” button. Is this truly what you desire or just what the algorithm has decided you should want?

We’re standing at a fascinating turning point in human history. Our most advanced technologies — often criticized for trapping us in cycles of shallow wants and helpless determinism — could offer us unprecedented freedom to rediscover what we truly desire. “Agentic AI” — those systems that can perceive, decide, and act on their own toward goals — isn't just another tech advancement. It might actually liberate our attention and intention.

Rather than passively accepting AI's influence, we can actively shape AI systems to reflect and enhance our deeply held values.

So what exactly is agentic AI? Think of it not just as a fancy calculator or clever chatbot, but as a digital entity with real independence.

These systems perceive their environment, make decisions, and take actions with significant autonomy. They learn from experiences, adapt to new information on the fly, and pursue complex goals without our constant direction. Self-driving cars navigate busy streets, trading algorithms make split-second financial decisions, and research systems discover scientific principles on their own.

These aren't just tools any more. They're becoming independent actors in our world.

To understand this shift, I want to introduce you to two key thinkers: Marshall McLuhan, who famously said “the medium is the message,” and René Girard, who revealed how we tend to want what others want — a phenomenon he called “mimetic desire.” Through their insights, we can see how agentic AI works as both a medium and a mediator, reshaping our reality while influencing what we desire. If we understand how agentic AI will continue to shape our world, we can maintain our agency in a world increasingly shaped by technological advances.

McLuhan: AI as medium

McLuhan showed us that technology’s structure, scale, and speed shape our consciousness more profoundly than whatever content it carries. The railway didn’t just introduce transportation; it created entirely new kinds of cities and work.

Similarly, agentic AI isn't just another tool. It's becoming an evolving environment whose very existence transforms us.

McLuhan offers the example of electric light. It had no “content” in the conventional sense, yet it utterly reshaped human existence by eliminating darkness. Agentic AI similarly restructures our world through its core qualities: autonomy, adaptability, and goal-directedness. We aren't just using agentic AI; we’re increasingly living inside its operational logic, an environment where non-human intelligence shapes our decisions, actions, and realities.

Neil Postman, who built on McLuhan’s work, reminds us that while media environments powerfully shape us, we aren't just passive recipients: “Media ecology looks into how media of communication affect human perception, understanding, feeling, and value.” By understanding these effects, we can maintain our agency within them. We can be active readers of the message rather than just being written by it.

One big impact is on how we make sense of the world. As agentic AI increasingly filters, interprets, and generates information, it becomes a powerful participant in constructing our reality. The challenge is maintaining shared reality while technology increasingly forges siloed, personalized worlds. While previous technological advances contributed to this siloing, AI offers the possibility of connectivity. Walter Ong's concept of "secondary orality" suggests AI might help create new forms of connection that overcome the isolating aspects of earlier digital technologies.

Girard: AI as mediator of desire

While McLuhan helps us understand how agentic AI reshapes our perception, René Girard offers a framework for understanding how it reshapes what we want.

Girard’s theory of mimetic desire suggests that human desire is rarely spontaneous. Instead, we learn what to want by imitating others — our "models." This creates a triangle: us, the model we imitate, and the object of desire.

Now, imagine agentic AI entering this dynamic. If human history has been a story of desire mediated by parents, peers, and advertisements, agentic AI is becoming a significant new mediator in our digital landscape. Its ability to learn our preferences, predict our behavior, and present curated choices makes it an influential model, continuously shaping our aspirations.

RELATED: If AI isn’t built for freedom, it will be programmed for control

Photo by Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

Peter Thiel, who studied under Girard at Stanford, suggests awareness of these dynamics can lead to more authentic choices. “The most successful businesses come from unique, non-mimetic insights,” Thiel observes. By recognizing how AI systems influence our desires, we can more consciously choose which influences to embrace and which to question, moving toward greater authenticity.

Look at recommendation engines, the precursors to full-blown agentic AI. They already operate on Girardian principles by showing us what others have bought or liked, making those items more desirable to us. Agentic AI takes this farther. Through its autonomous actions and pursuit of goals, it can demonstrate desirability.

The key question becomes: Is your interest in a hobby, conviction about an issue, or lifestyle aspiration truly your own? And more importantly, can you tell the difference, and does it matter if it brings you genuine fulfillment?

A collaborative future

The convergence of AI as both medium and mediator creates unprecedented possibilities for human-AI partnership.

Andrew Feenberg's critical theory of technology offers a constructive path forward. He argues that technologies aren't neutral tools but are laden with values. However, he rejects technological determinism, emphasizing that these values can be redesigned through what he calls “democratic rationalization,” the process by which users reshape technologies to better reflect their values.

“Technology is not destiny but a scene of struggle,” Feenberg writes. "It is a social battlefield on which civilizational alternatives are debated and decided." Rather than passively accepting AI's influence, we can actively shape AI systems to reflect and enhance our deeply held values.

This vision requires thoughtful design guided by human wisdom. The same capabilities that could liberate us could create more sophisticated traps. The difference lies not in the technology itself but in the values and intentions that shape its development. By drawing on insights from McLuhan, Girard, Postman, Ong, Thiel, Feenberg, and others, we can approach this evolving medium not with fear or passive acceptance, but with creative engagement.

The future of agentic AI isn't predetermined. It’s ours to shape as a technology that enhances rather than diminishes our humanity, that serves as a partner rather than a master in our ongoing quest for meaning, connection, and flourishing.