September 21, 2026
WA State Leftist Supreme Court Rejects Voters’ Choice of Energy Access
WA High Court Again Voids Voters’ Will In Natural Gas Ruling
| BILL BRUCH SEP 21 |  |
Last week, the Washington State Supreme Court struck down Initiative 2066, a 2024 ballot measure approved by voters that sought to protect natural gas service and limit state climate change policies forcing citizens toward mandated electric heating and other alternatives.
In a 6-3 decision, the court held that I-2066 violated the single-subject rule in Article II, Section 19 of the state constitution, saying it combined natural-gas access rules, limits on local air-quality agencies, building- and energy-code changes, and amendments to the Decarbonization Act.
Chief Justice Debra L. Stephens wrote the majority opinion. Justices Steven C. González, Raquel Montoya-Lewis, G. Helen Whitener, Colleen M. Melody and Barbara A. Madsen, sitting as justice pro tempore, joined. Justice Salvador A. Mungia dissented, joined by Justices Charles W. Johnson and Sheryl Gordon McCloud. Justice Theodore J. Angelis, who is up for election, did not participate.
Supporters of I-2066, including the Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW), called the result a rejection of the voters’ choice on energy access; the dissent argued the court should have saved as much of the measure as possible. The ruling leaves existing climate change, building-code, and utility-planning policies in place. BIAW Executive Vice President Greg Lane called the decision “a direct rejection of the clearly expressed will of Washington voters. Nearly 2 million people voted to keep energy choice, and the court “has now taken that choice away.”
WAGOP Chair Rep. Jim Walsh wrote on X that the court again used the single-subject rule “as its justification for denying the people’s voice” and called that application “intellectually lazy and dishonest.”
Let’s Go Washington (LGW), the organization behind I-2066, accused state officials and the courts of creating mounting barriers to WA’s constitutionally protected initiative process. ”The decision by the Supreme Court is shameful, not only because it punishes families making heating their homes more expensive, but because it appears to be a coordinated effort by all three branches of government to annihilate the initiative process itself,” LGW founder Brian Heywood said.
“The voters made their decision and exercised a constitutional right reserved for the people. That decision was erased by a biased and one-sided court.”
Last week’s ruling on Initiative 2066 makes it the fifth time the State Supreme Court voided a voter-approved statewide initiative under the single-subject requirement. In 2000, it struck down Initiative 695, the 1999 measure that set $30 vehicle tabs and required voter approval for future state and local tax increases. It applied the same rule in 2001 to Initiative 722, which rolled back certain tax and fee increases while limiting annual property-tax growth; again in 2016 to Initiative 1366, which would have cut the state sales-tax rate unless lawmakers referred a constitutional amendment requiring a two-thirds legislative vote to raise taxes; and again in 2020 to Initiative 976, another $30 car-tab measure that sought to reduce state and local vehicle taxes and fees.
Other voter-approved initiatives that have fallen on different constitutional grounds include Initiative 747, which limited property-tax levy increases, and Initiative 1240, which authorized charter schools.
Republican LD 8 State Sen. Matt Boehnke criticized the decision but noted that the court did not rule that protecting natural-gas access was unconstitutional. “WA voters had their say on I-2066. They voted to preserve access to natural gas and protect families’ and businesses’ ability to choose the energy source that works for them. The ruling doesn’t erase what voters told us: The court has made its decision, but the policy issue is still very much alive. The Legislature can and should take it up again.” Boehnke said.
I-2066 was a law in WA State adopted by voters that was overturned by six people. Interesting that five of the six justices in the majority were initially appointed by a governor; four of them were appointed by Governor Inslee. However, the three dissenting judges were ALL elected by the people!
Because the state Supreme Court is the final interpreter of the Washington Constitution, its composition will shape how future initiatives, tax measures, and energy statutes are reviewed.
Judicial elections matter now more than ever for anyone who cares about the voters’ will or how constitutional limits are applied. Five Washington Supreme Court seats are on the November 4, 2026 ballot. Voters who want different outcomes in 2027 and later will need to examine candidates’ records on Article II, Section 19, deference to voter-approved measures, and related constitutional questions, then decide for themselves.
This is why it is so vital you vote to replace Washington State Supreme Court justices this November. The future court is also expected to rule on the Democrats’ unconstitutional income tax. We have the best slate of qualified candidates we’ve had in years, and a rare opportunity to flip the court: Dave Larson, David Stevens, Scott Edwards, Todd Bloom, and Sean O’Donnell
The November 4 election may be your last chance to save Washington state.
If you want to stop WA from becoming a statewide power-grabbing socialist holocaust, then please vote the extreme leftists out of office and only elect good, qualified, common-sense public servants who will do the will of the people!
Bill Bruch
Bill Bruch is the WA State GOP Election Integrity Committee Chairman (6th year), WAGOP Executive Board Member (6th year), Skagit County GOP Chairman (10th year), RNC Election Integrity Committee WA State Chairman, Citizen Journalist, Business Owner, 2020 WA State House Representative Candidate, Former Council Member, and WA State 2016 and 2024 RNC National Convention Delegate
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The Roundup for Mon Sept 21, 2026
The best of Washington on X: Natural Gas decision impacts Supreme Court races, I-645 Pamphlet, DOJ Voter-Fraud Arrests
| NANCY D CHURCHILL SEP 21 |  |
1. I-2066 fallout — five justices are on the ballot
Synopsis: The fight over Initiative 2066 is not only about natural gas anymore. After the Washington Supreme Court struck down the voter-approved measure, posts are turning to the next election: five justices are running, and critics Democratic governors appointed the majority that tossed the initiative. Others warn the court’s single-subject approach could reach far beyond this one ballot measure.
From the Bookmarks:
- Isaac Holyk says five Supreme Court justices are on the ballot after the court overturned voters on I-2066.
Isaac Holyk for U.S. Senate@voteholykMaybe this latest ruling from the WA Supreme Court overturning the will of the voters AGAIN has a silver lining? Everyone is talking about the 5 Supreme courts justices running and we have an election coming up. Everyone votes NO MATTER WHAT!!!! I can promise you this election …
12:40 AM · Sep 21, 2026 · 4.53K Views4 Replies · 157 Reposts · 427 Likes- Brian Heywood notes that five of the six justices in the majority were originally appointed by Democratic governors.
Brian Heywood – That Damn Mormon@bkheywoodTo the natural gas supporters out there upset their vote was recently overturned by the Supreme Court You may find it interesting that the 5 of the 6 judges who voted to strip you of your voice and your natural gas were all originally idealogical appointees by democrat…
KIRO Newsradio 97.3 FM🎙 @KIRONewsradioThe WA Supreme Court has struck down voter-approved Initiative 2066 in a 6-3 ruling, saying the natural gas access measure violated the state Constitution by combining multiple subjects. 51% of voters approved it in Nov. 2024. https://t.co/H8DrzhuSKw3:34 PM · Sep 19, 2026 · 30.1K Views49 Replies · 351 Reposts · 1.01K Likes- Brian Heywood also says the ruling set new single-subject criteria, with Justice Madsen warning in dissent how far that could go.
Jason Mercier @MercierOnPolicyBased on the WA Supreme Court’s natural gas ruling, how does the new income tax law not violate the single-subject restriction? #waleg3:05 PM · Sep 19, 2026 · 19K Views32 Replies · 216 Reposts · 777 Likes- Viet Q. Nguyen asks whether the same single-subject logic could be used to strike down ordinary statutes too.
Viet Q Nguyen@VietQNguyenHere’s the question I pose, if any lawyers want to tackle this one. If the Washington State Supreme Court could strike down I-2066 on single-subject grounds, then couldn’t they strike down virtually any statue created by the Washington State Legislature on similar grounds? After…6:15 PM · Sep 20, 2026 · 7.72K Views31 Replies · 55 Reposts · 270 LikesLeave a comment on Story One: I-2066 fallout — five justices are on the ballot
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2. I-645: pamphlet claims, unions, and a payroll-tax threat
Synopsis: Can Olympia expand the new income tax without another public vote? Jim Walsh says the voters’ pamphlet claim that it takes a new vote to hit everyone is false — and that deleting one section would do it. Fresh posts also highlight heavy union spending to keep the tax, plus a warning of a separate 5% payroll tax push in 2027.
From the Bookmarks:
- Jim Walsh calls the voters’ pamphlet statement a lie, saying the Legislature can remove Section 314 and apply the 9.9% income tax to everyone — including retirement income.
Jim Walsh@JimWalshLD19Weekend viewing. The voter pamphlet statement that the Ferguson-Pedersen state income tax scheme requires a vote of the people to be applied to everyone is a LIE. The State Legislature can remove Section 314 and the 9.9% state income tax applies to EVERYONE. And it will apply to…3:36 PM · Sep 20, 2026 · 7.08K Views17 Replies · 209 Reposts · 493 Likes- Brian Heywood says public unions have put up most of the money defending the income tax, and that retirement accounts are in the crosshairs.
- PNW Conservative warns of a 5% payroll tax on wages over $130,000 coming in 2027, paid by employers.
PNW Conservative@PNWConservativeComing in 2027, regardless of the income tax? A “payroll” tax of 5% on wages over $130,000. The employer pays this. And workers will pay for it through fewer jobs. Communist Shaun Scott and Pervert Senator Jamie Pedersen are threatening business with.
5:41 PM · Sep 20, 2026 · 7.12K Views23 Replies · 113 Reposts · 314 LikesLeave a comment on Story Two: I-645 — pamphlet claims, unions, and a payroll-tax threat
3. DOJ’s noncitizen voter-fraud arrests
Synopsis: The Justice Department is posting a wave of voter-fraud cases, including arrests of illegal aliens in several states. Stephen Miller says noncitizen voting is widespread and that blue states will not share voter rolls. Supporters say the busts answer Democrats who claimed citizenship checks at registration were unnecessary.
From the Bookmarks:
- Eric Daugherty reports DOJ confirmed 16 voter-fraud cases in short order, including illegal aliens from several countries.
Eric Daugherty@EricLDaugh🚨 IT’S OFFICIAL: DOJ just confirmed that 16 VOTER FRAUD cases were just busted in short order, including a swath of ILLEGAL ALIENS arrested Foreigners arrested are from Mexico, Nigeria, India, and Congo! Hold on a second — the Democrats said we don’t need the SAVE America Act …
8:40 PM · Sep 19, 2026 · 36.6K Views73 Replies · 439 Reposts · 1.31K Likes- Eric Daugherty also lists major DOJ voter-fraud arrests across Wisconsin, Michigan, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Georgia, Texas, and Idaho.
10:00 PM · Sep 19, 2026 · 282K Views1.03K Replies · 6.96K Reposts · 22.4K Likes- Eric Daugherty shares Stephen Miller saying noncitizen voting is “widespread” and “pervasive,” and that blue states refuse to share voter rolls.
8:57 PM · Sep 19, 2026 · 88.8K Views185 Replies · 985 Reposts · 2.36K LikesLeave a comment on Story Three: DOJ’s noncitizen voter-fraud arrests
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Don’t forget to submit your comment on the proposed Census Rule!
Influencing Olympia Effectively
✍🏻 Federal Register: Comment on a Proposed rule for the Census
The Census Bureau proposed new rules on September 10, 2026, for the 2030 census…
10 days ago · 10 likes · 3 comments · Nancy D Churchill
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Kennedy runs HHS. Has loyalty replaced scrutiny?
| DR. ROBERT W. MALONE SEP 21 |  |
Audio Version:
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LISTEN NOW · 30:10By: Dr.s Jill Glasspool Malone and Robert W. Malone
For five years, the medical freedom movement demanded accountability. It demanded accountability from Anthony Fauci, Francis Collins, the FDA, CDC, NIH, pharmaceutical companies, universities, physicians, journalists, and politicians. It challenged emergency authorizations, mandates, censorship, vaccine safety claims, and the extraordinary speed with which a novel pharmaceutical technology was deployed across the population.
At the center of much of that movement stood Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Children’s Health Defense, which Kennedy chaired, petitioned the FDA in 2021 to revoke the Emergency Use Authorizations for the COVID vaccines. Kennedy himself described the COVID vaccine as the “deadliest vaccine ever made.” Whatever one thinks of the scientific argument, there was nothing ambiguous about Kennedy’s position. These products were dangerous. The regulatory system had failed. The public had been misled. Government had to act.
That history matters because Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is no longer standing outside the gates of the FDA demanding action. He is the Secretary of Health and Human Services. FDA, CDC, NIH, NIAID, and BARDA are all components of the department he leads.
The Secretary of Health and Human Services is the Cabinet officer responsible for the overall supervision, direction, and administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Secretary establishes departmental policy and priorities and oversees HHS programs, operating divisions, and activities, including the FDA, CDC, NIH, and CMS, subject to authorities established by Congress and applicable law.
-— 42 U.S.C. § 3501, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Nineteen months into his tenure, the Pfizer and Moderna COVID mRNA vaccines remain licensed. NIH continues to fund mRNA vaccine research. New mRNA vaccine research awards have been made during his tenure.
And on August 5, 2026, Kennedy’s FDA approved Moderna’s MFLUSIVA, the first mRNA influenza vaccine licensed in the United States, granting traditional approval for adults 50–64 and accelerated approval for those 65 and older, despite Kennedy himself having announced when not part of the Trump administration that mRNA vaccines “fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu.” The man who spent years warning America about mRNA vaccines now presides over a department that has approved another one. That is not a minor detail. It is the sort of contradiction that the medical freedom movement once would have torn apart.
Nor was Kennedy’s promise limited to vaccine recommendations or research priorities. On September 26, 2024, six weeks before the election, Kennedy explicitly endorsed Representative Paul Gosar’s End the Vaccine Carveout Act. “If we want safe and effective vaccines, we need to end the liability shield,” Kennedy said. Yet the COVID-19 PREP Act declaration protecting manufacturers remains in force through December 31, 2029. There are things Kennedy cannot do without Congress. This is not one of them.
Under the PREP Act, the HHS Secretary can amend the declaration prospectively by publishing a notice in the Federal Register. He cannot retroactively eliminate immunity that manufacturers already received, but he can alter its application going forward. Kennedy has not done so. His own HHS demonstrated that it knows perfectly well how to use this authority when it issued a new PREP Act declaration in May 2026 granting liability protection for Andes virus countermeasures. The authority exists. Kennedy has exercised it. He simply has not exercised it against the COVID liability shield he once publicly opposed.
Kennedy’s defenders have accomplishments they can legitimately point to. His FDA narrowed routine COVID vaccine approvals. He dismissed the entire ACIP and replaced its membership. HHS substantially revised the childhood vaccine schedule, although a federal court subsequently blocked that action. His administration has proposed changes to the vaccine injury compensation process, but they have yet to take effect. These are consequential actions. But many of the administration’s most significant promised reforms remain proposals rather than enacted policy. None removed a licensed COVID mRNA product from the market, and none ended the PREP Act immunity protecting its manufacturers.
Instead, Kennedy’s supporters point repeatedly to the $500 million BARDA mRNA cancellation as though it settles the question. It does not. The August 2025 action terminated or de-scoped 22 BARDA investments in mRNA vaccine development, and it was a significant policy decision. But BARDA represents only a small part of the biomedical research enterprise within HHS. BARDA’s entire FY2025 budget was roughly $1 billion, compared with nearly $50 billion for NIH alone. The cancellation therefore addressed one relatively small corner of federal biomedical research funding, not HHS-wide mRNA research.
Nor was it the removal of the Pfizer or Moderna COVID vaccines. Much of the affected work concerned future pandemic preparedness, including H5/H5N1 avian influenza, next-generation COVID vaccines, and rapid-response vaccine platforms. Some advanced mRNA projects were explicitly allowed to continue. Most importantly, HHS itself inserted a sentence into the announcement that somehow disappeared from much of the celebratory coverage: “Other uses of mRNA technology within the department are not impacted by this announcement.” This was a BARDA research-development pivot. It was not the end of federal mRNA research, much less the removal of the COVID products that Kennedy and CHD had spent years demanding be taken off the market.
There is another distinction that deserves far more attention. Kennedy took dramatic action against the ACIP committee members that he inherited. The ACIP is the CDC advisory committee that makes recommendations about who should receive vaccines after they are licensed. He dismissed all seventeen members and rebuilt the committee.
Yet VRBPAC, the FDA advisory committee that deals with the vaccines themselves and advises FDA on licensing, continues functioning. VRBPAC met in March to select influenza strains. It met again in May to consider the 2026-2027 COVID formula. It met in June to consider MFLUSIVA and voted unanimously in favor of it for the age groups considered. FDA then approved Moderna’s mRNA flu vaccine. Updated Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccines were also approved for the 2026-2027 season. The CDC’s ACIP committee was torn apart. The machinery associated with licensing the products continued to operate.
That distinction becomes even more troubling because of what happened to ACIP’s COVID vaccine workgroup. By February 15, 2026, that workgroup had completed a report recommending federal recognition of post-acute COVID-19 vaccination syndrome, new diagnostic codes, clinical guidelines, and a national network of specialized treatment centers.
Dr. Robert Malone, a co-author of this essay, served as vice-chair of that workgroup. HHS postponed the February ACIP meeting after failing to publish the required public notice on time and offered no substantive public explanation. Privately, some committee members, including Dr. Malone, were told by the deputy chief of staff of HHS, Stefanie Spear that officials in the White House did not want these issues discussed publicly because of the anticipated media backlash. HHS then deliberately chose not to publish the required public notice and subsequently blamed a CDC employee for the oversight. CDC later rescheduled the meeting for March, despite knowing that a pending lawsuit could result in the committee being invalidated and the meeting canceled. As anticipated, the federal court subsequently invalidated the committee and halted its work. In other words, it is not sufficient to say that a judge stopped ACIP. HHS had already stopped the February meeting where vaccine injury was finally going to receive serious public attention, while knowing that the pending AAP lawsuit could result in further cancellations. As Secretary of HHS, Kennedy should be asked what he knew about these decisions and the litigation strategy unfolding under his watch.
The personnel story is even more troubling. The people inside FDA who were actually prepared to impose significant restrictions on COVID and mRNA vaccines were disappeared. Tracy Beth Høeg, who advocated much stronger warnings and restrictions concerning COVID vaccination in young males, was abruptly fired without explanation. Vinay Prasad imposed tougher vaccine standards, restricted COVID vaccine approvals, took direct control of vaccine safety surveillance, and ultimately refused even to review Moderna’s new mRNA influenza vaccine. FDA reversed that decision after White House involvement. Prasad subsequently left. Marty Makary, who had brought both Prasad and Høeg into positions of influence and had challenged much of the old COVID consensus, then “resigned.”
Except “resigned” does not adequately convey what happened. Contemporary reporting indicates that White House officials had already approved a plan to replace Makary and that Kennedy had become frustrated with his leadership. An administration official said the decision to replace Makary was Kennedy’s and had White House approval. Makary had other disputes with the administration, including over flavored e-cigarettes, so it would be wrong to reduce his departure entirely to vaccines. But the basic sequence is difficult to dispute. The administration had decided to replace him. Makary resigned before he could be removed.
Prasad’s story is somewhat different, but hardly comforting. He had already been pushed out once in July 2025 after attacks over his regulatory decisions. Makary fought to bring him back. After returning, Prasad took direct control of vaccine safety surveillance and pushed much tougher vaccine standards. Then came the confrontation over Moderna’s mRNA influenza vaccine. Prasad refused to review it. FDA reversed him. He subsequently left FDA. Three months after Prasad’s departure, the vaccine he refused to review was licensed.
So strip away the press releases and look at the outcome. Makary is gone. Prasad is gone. Høeg was fired. David Kaslow, is director of CBER’s Office of Vaccines Research and Review and who presided over the FDA’s presentation of Moderna’s mRNA influenza vaccine to VRBPAC, remains. The Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccines remain licensed. And the Moderna mRNA influenza vaccine that Prasad refused to review has now been approved. Those facts ought to be causing an earthquake inside the medical freedom movement. If Xavier Becerra had presided over precisely this sequence of events, Children’s Health Defense would have been incandescent. Yet because the man sitting in the Secretary’s office is Bobby Kennedy, the scrutiny becomes remarkably gentle.
Meanwhile Kennedy has publicly supported nominees whose records would once have caused outrage within this movement. Erica Schwartz, nominated and subsequently confirmed to lead CDC, told senators plainly that she believes in vaccines and defended mRNA vaccination. Nicole Saphier, Trump’s Surgeon General nominee, has defended childhood vaccination and publicly criticized elements of Kennedy’s own vaccine agenda. Kennedy nevertheless praised her as a “long-time warrior for the MAHA movement.” A Cabinet secretary does not personally select every presidential nominee, and disagreement inside an administration is healthy. But there is a remarkable asymmetry here. People who actually attempted to put serious regulatory brakes on mRNA vaccines have left, while officials with conventional histories of supporting vaccination receive Kennedy’s public blessing.
And then, this month, Kennedy went home to Children’s Health Defense.
The September 17 CHD conference should trouble anyone who believes that the medical freedom movement is actually about independent thought. Kennedy walked into an organization he once led and received the kind of adulation that ought to make a movement founded on skepticism deeply uncomfortable. Kennedy told the audience that they had “a strong and steadfast friend at the White House” and urged them to be patient. Government is difficult. Bureaucracies move slowly. Courts interfere. Change takes time. Some of that is obviously true. But what followed was less an exercise in holding a powerful Cabinet secretary accountable than a celebration of Bobby Kennedy.
There is another side to Kennedy’s description of that “strong and steadfast friend” that deserves to be told. Earlier this year, Kennedy’s principal deputy chief of staff and senior counselor, Stefanie Spear, told Robert that President Trump and his West Wing advisors did not want ACIP meeting again until after the midterm election. Others were present for that conversation. No written directive has surfaced, and this can only be reported as what Spear told us. But that is what we were told. At CHD, Kennedy’s audience heard about their steadfast friend in the White House. They did not hear an explanation for why the committee where vaccine injury was finally receiving sustained attention had remained silent.
After the court ruling effectively halted the reconstituted ACIP’s work, members were instructed not to discuss committee matters with one another or with the press. That was about the point at which I resigned. The practical consequence is worth noting: since February, the physicians and scientists Kennedy himself selected for ACIP, many of them prominent voices within the medical freedom movement, have effectively been silenced as members of the committee.
Tony Lyons provided perhaps the clearest example of what the medical freedom movement is becoming. He described Kennedy as an “incredible human being” with extraordinary “integrity” and “honesty,” a man essentially sacrificing himself to protect America’s children at tremendous personal cost at the recent CHD conference. He declared Kennedy the most dangerous individual to the existing system to emerge in a generation. This was delivered at a conference supposedly devoted to transparency and accountability, at precisely the moment when there are some very difficult questions Kennedy ought to be answering.
But there is another dimension to Lyons’s praise that should not be ignored. Lyons is president of MAHA Action and co-chaired American Values 2024, the super PAC that supported Kennedy’s presidential campaign. Lyons founded Skyhorse Publishing, which publishes Kennedy’s books and reportedly has him under contract for another. Skyhorse contributed $100,000 to American Values 2024 in 2023, after earlier in-kind expenditures for pro-Kennedy newspaper advertisements. MAHA Action has subsequently promoted numerous Skyhorse titles. Lyons may be entirely sincere in his praise of Kennedy. But there are also longstanding political, professional, and financial relationships between them that matter. The medical freedom movement spent five years teaching people to examine the financial interests behind glowing statements about pharmaceutical products and public-health officials. That same standard should apply to glowing statements about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Sayer Ji promoted the CHD gathering as a meeting of people on the “front lines” fighting for “transparency, accountability, and justice in public health.” Those are admirable words. Then apply them. None of the published accounts I have seen describe anyone publicly pressing Kennedy at CHD about the surviving COVID liability shield, the COVID mRNA products still on the market, Moderna’s newly approved mRNA influenza vaccine, the continuing NIH mRNA research, or the departures of Makary, Prasad, and Høeg. The Secretary of Health and Human Services stood before the organization he once chaired, surrounded by people who had spent years demanding answers on precisely these issues, and apparently received far more adulation than interrogation.
Accountability that stops at Bobby Kennedy’s feet is not accountability. It is allegiance.
There is a word for the behavior developing around Kennedy. When a political movement reaches the point where virtually no possible outcome causes its supporters to reconsider their faith in its leader, the standards of evidence have changed. Success is attributed to the leader. Failure is attributed to his enemies, the bureaucracy, the courts, or other forces beyond his control.
That is not skepticism. It is sycophancy. And when loyalty to an individual becomes more important than the principles and standards the movement once claimed to uphold, the behavior becomes cult-like.
And there is something particularly Kennedy-esque about it. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was born into America’s most mythologized political family. The Kennedy family has lived with this kind of adulation for generations. After John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Jacqueline Kennedy deliberately helped construct the “Camelot” mythology that would define his presidency for decades. Journalist Theodore White later acknowledged that he had allowed himself to become her instrument in creating that myth. JFK became more than a president. He became a symbol, a heroic figure surrounded by glamour, tragedy, sacrifice, and destiny, while inconvenient parts of the historical record were pushed into the shadows. Historians spent decades trying to separate the actual presidency from Camelot.
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Robert Kennedy Jr. grew up inside that world. The crowds, the reverence, the family tragedy, the courtiers, and the assumption that a Kennedy was not merely another politician but a figure of history were part of his inheritance. Much of this surrounded him during adolescence, when identity, sexuality, power, and the understanding of what it meant to be a Kennedy were still being formed. Kennedy has subsequently written publicly and privately about his own struggles with what he called his “lust demons,” describing them as his “greatest defect.”
Those struggles do not establish anything about his political leadership today, but they are part of the complicated personal history that developed alongside the Kennedy mythology. I cannot know what Kennedy privately needs or craves, and I am not going to pretend that I can see inside another man’s head. But something much simpler can be observed: he does not discourage this behavior. He returns to audiences that treat him this way, accepts the accolades, asks for their patience and loyalty, and remains the heroic protagonist in a story where successes belong to Bobby and failures belong to everyone around him.
The danger is that his followers appear increasingly willing to participate in that mythology. A movement that once warned Americans never to surrender their judgment to experts is now surrendering that judgment to an authority figure of its own. A movement that warned Americans not to trust government officials now tells its followers to trust this particular government official. A movement that insisted intentions did not matter when Fauci, Collins, Walensky, or Becerra were in charge suddenly asks everyone to consider Kennedy’s intentions, his obstacles, his enemies, his sacrifices, and how terribly difficult Washington is.
This kind of sycophancy is dangerous for Kennedy as well. Powerful people surrounded by admirers eventually stop hearing what they need to hear. Nobody wants to be the person who spoils the standing ovation. Nobody wants to tell the hero that the great victory being celebrated was considerably smaller than advertised, that the products remain on the market, that the liability shield remains intact, or that most of the people who actually tried to impose meaningful restrictions are gone. Eventually the leader hears increasingly little except reassurance from people whose status, access, careers, businesses, or identities have become intertwined with his success. That is how movements lose the capacity to correct themselves.
There is an easy test for all of this. Replace Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with past HHS secretary Xavier Becerra. Imagine that under Becerra the COVID mRNA vaccines remained licensed, the COVID liability shield remained intact through 2029, NIH continued funding mRNA vaccine research, new mRNA projects received federal money, FDA approved the nation’s first mRNA influenza vaccine, an FDA official pushing aggressive COVID vaccine restrictions and to make public the FDA’s records on vaccine-related deaths was fired, the CBER director who refused to review Moderna’s mRNA influenza vaccine left after his decision was reversed, and the FDA commissioner who had brought those people into government resigned after the administration had already decided to replace him. Imagine that HHS also postponed an ACIP meeting where a completed vaccine-injury report was to be heard and offered no substantive explanation. Then imagine Becerra appearing before his former political organization and asking everyone to be patient while its leadership praised his integrity, courage, and personal sacrifice.
Would Children’s Health Defense accept that explanation? Would Tony Lyons stand up and praise Becerra’s extraordinary integrity? Would Sayer Ji tell everyone that Becerra was fighting heroically behind the scenes? Would medical freedom influencers explain that government is complicated and people simply need to give Xavier more time?
Those questions do not determine whether Kennedy’s individual policies are right or wrong. They expose something much more important: whether the medical freedom movement still has principles that apply regardless of who holds power.
The contradiction becomes even harder to ignore when Kennedy’s own words are compared across time. In 2021, he called the COVID vaccine the “deadliest vaccine ever made.” Four years later, sitting before the Senate as HHS Secretary, Kennedy was asked whether Donald Trump deserved a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed. Kennedy answered, “Absolutely.”He went further, calling Operation Warp Speed “genius” and saying it got a vaccine to market that was “perfectly matched to the virus at that time.”
The medical freedom movement spent five years telling Americans that friendship, credentials, reputation, and institutional prestige were irrelevant. Follow the evidence. Question authority. Demand transparency. Hold powerful people accountable.
Fine.
Then do it.
Ask Robert F. Kennedy Jr. why the COVID mRNA vaccines are still on the market. Ask whether he still believes they should be removed. Ask whether he still believes the COVID vaccine was the “deadliest vaccine ever made.” Ask why NIH continues funding mRNA vaccine research. Ask why his department approved an mRNA influenza vaccine after he publicly said mRNA vaccines fail against respiratory viruses such as influenza. Ask why the COVID PREP Act liability shield remains intact when Kennedy publicly supported ending that protection before taking office and now possesses the authority to amend the declaration prospectively himself.
Ask what happened to Prasad, Makary, and Høeg. Ask what Kennedy did to protect the people inside FDA who were actually willing to confront these issues. Ask why Prasad’s refusal to review Moderna’s mRNA flu vaccine was reversed after White House intervention, only for Prasad to leave and the vaccine to be approved months later. Ask what role Kennedy played in the decision to replace Makary. Ask why Høeg was fired, and whether Kennedy supported or opposed that decision. Ask why Kennedy is now praising nominees with long records of supporting vaccines, including mRNA COVID vaccination.
And ask what happened in February. Ask why HHS postponed the ACIP meeting at which the COVID vaccine workgroup was prepared to present its completed report on post-acute COVID-19 vaccination syndrome before
Those are not acts of betrayal. They are exactly what accountability is supposed to look like.
Kennedy does not need more palace courtiers. He has plenty.
What he needs, and what the medical freedom movement desperately needs if it intends to retain any intellectual credibility, are people willing to look him in the eye and apply exactly the same standards to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that they applied to everyone who came before him.
Otherwise, this was never really a movement about questioning unaccountable authority.
It was about replacing one authority with another.
Independent journalism is easy when the target is someone everyone around you already opposes. It becomes much harder when the questions involve friends, allies, institutions you once supported, or people whose success you genuinely hoped for.
Speaking truth to power means very little if it applies only when that power is held by your opponents. The real test comes when power is held by your friends.
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References
- Children’s Health Defense. “CHD Calls on FDA to Immediately Take COVID Vaccines Off the Market.” May 20, 2021. Documents the Citizen Petition filed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Meryl Nass asking FDA to revoke the COVID-19 vaccine EUAs and refrain from licensing the vaccines.
CHD petition coverage - Putterman, Samantha. PolitiFact. “No, the COVID-19 vaccine is not the deadliest vaccine ever made.” December 10, 2021. Documents Kennedy’s December 6, 2021 statement to Louisiana legislators that the COVID vaccine was the “deadliest vaccine ever made,” as well as his reliance on VAERS reports.
Kennedy’s 2021 statement and fact check - U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “HHS Winds Down mRNA Vaccine Development Under BARDA.” August 5, 2025. HHS announced termination or de-scoping of 22 mRNA vaccine-development investments “worth nearly $500 million.” The announcement expressly stated: “Other uses of mRNA technology within the department are not impacted by this announcement.”
HHS BARDA mRNA announcement - Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response. Fiscal Year 2025 Congressional Justification. The FY2025 request listed BARDA at $970 million.
ASPR FY2025 Congressional Justification - National Institutes of Health. FY2025 funding data. NIH reports a total FY2025 appropriation of approximately $48.5 billion, providing context for the scale of BARDA relative to NIH.
NIH budget information - U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “MFLUSIVA.” FDA approved Moderna’s mRNA influenza vaccine on August 5, 2026, for persons 50 years and older. Approval for persons 65 and older was granted under the accelerated-approval pathway.
FDA MFLUSIVA approval page - U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee June 18, 2026 Meeting.” Documents VRBPAC consideration of the safety and effectiveness of Moderna’s MFLUSIVA application.
FDA June 18 VRBPAC materials - U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “2026 Meeting Materials, Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee.” Documents the March influenza meeting, May 28 meeting on the 2026–2027 COVID vaccine formula, and June MFLUSIVA meeting.
FDA 2026 VRBPAC meeting materials - U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “COVID-19 Vaccines (2026–2027 Formula) for Use in the United States Beginning in Fall 2026.” Documents VRBPAC’s May 28, 2026 deliberations and FDA’s subsequent recommendation for the updated formula.
FDA 2026–2027 COVID vaccine formula - U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “Coronavirus (COVID-19) | CBER-Regulated Biologics.” FDA continues to list Comirnaty, Mnexspike and Spikevax as approved mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.
FDA COVID-19 vaccine regulatory information - Lawrence, Lizzy. STAT. “Prasad overruled FDA staff to reject Moderna’s flu vaccine application.” February 11, 2026. Reports that Vinay Prasad declined to accept Moderna’s mRNA influenza-vaccine application for review despite career reviewers and vaccine-office director David Kaslow favoring review.
STAT reporting on Prasad and Moderna - STAT. “FDA’s Vinay Prasad, controversial CBER chief, to depart.” March 6, 2026. Reports Prasad’s departure, his increased control over vaccine-safety surveillance, and FDA’s decision to review Moderna’s influenza vaccine following White House pressure.
STAT reporting on Prasad’s departure - Associated Press. “FDA official who scrutinized COVID shots and antidepressants is out in latest shake-up.” May 2026. Reports Tracy Beth Høeg’s departure from FDA amid the agency’s leadership changes.
- Roubein, Rachel, and Dan Diamond. The Washington Post. “FDA chief resigns amid agency turmoil.” May 12, 2026. Reports that White House officials had signed off on a plan to replace FDA Commissioner Marty Makary before his resignation.
Washington Post reporting on Makary’s departure - U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Organization Chart.” September 16, 2026. Lists David Kaslow, M.D., as director of CBER’s Office of Vaccines Research and Review.
FDA CBER organization chart - American Academy of Pediatrics et al. v. Kennedy et al., Civil Action No. 25-11916-BEM, U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, Memorandum and Order, March 16, 2026. The court stayed the January 2026 childhood immunization schedule memorandum, the appointments of thirteen ACIP members, and votes taken by the affected ACIP.
March 16, 2026 court order - Gosar, Rep. Paul. End the Vaccine Carveout Act, H.R. 9828, 118th Congress. Introduced September 25, 2024. The legislation proposed eliminating specified liability protections for vaccine manufacturers.
H.R. 9828 text and legislative record - Gosar, Rep. Paul. End the Vaccine Carveout Act, H.R. 4668, 119th Congress. Reintroduced July 23, 2025.
H.R. 4668 legislative record - U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Declaration Under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act for Medical Countermeasures Against Andes Virus, May 2026. The declaration identifies favipiravir as the covered countermeasure and illustrates the Secretary’s exercise of PREP Act declaration authority.
Federal Register Andes virus PREP Act declaration - CNN, Inside Politics transcript. September 4, 2025. Kennedy described the original COVID vaccine as “critical” and “perfectly matched to a virus that was new in the experience of humanity,” while also discussing reported vaccine injuries.
CNN transcript - Associated Press. “Kennedy tells anti-vaccine activists they have a friend in Trump’s White House.” September 17, 2026. Reports Kennedy’s appearance at the Children’s Health Defense conference and his statement: “You have a strong and steadfast friend in the White House.”
- Children’s Health Defense. CHD in DC: In Order to Form a More Perfect Future. September 17, 2026. Official conference materials describe the event as highlighting officials and advocates working for “transparency, accountability and justice” in public health and list participating speakers.
Official CHD conference page - Ji, Sayer. “CHD in DC: ‘In Order to Form a More Perfect Future.’” August 9, 2026. Ji described participants as being on the “front lines” fighting for transparency, accountability and justice in public health.
Sayer Ji’s conference announcement - American Values 2024. Organizational materials identify Tony Lyons as co-founder/co-president and president and publisher of Skyhorse Publishing. Contemporary records document American Values 2024’s support for Kennedy’s presidential campaign.
American Values 2024 leadership - FactCheck.org / Annenberg Public Policy Center. “American Values 2024.” Documents Tony Lyons and Mark Gorton as co-founders/co-chairs, American Values 2024’s support for Kennedy’s 2024 campaign, and Lyons’s publishing relationship with Kennedy.
American Values 2024 background - Federal Election Commission. American Values 2024 Schedule A filing, July 31, 2023. Federal campaign-finance records document contributions from Skyhorse Publishing to American Values 2024.
FEC filing - The Boston Globe. “Meet Tony Lyons, the man building RFK Jr.’s MAHA empire.” March 25, 2026. Examines the relationship among Lyons, Skyhorse Publishing, MAHA organizations, Kennedy-associated publishing, and promotion of Skyhorse titles through MAHA channels.
Boston Globe reporting on Lyons and MAHA - PolitiFact. “Three takeaways from Dr. Nicole Saphier’s podcast, Trump’s nominee for the ‘nation’s doctor.’” June 2, 2026. Documents Saphier’s vaccine positions and Kennedy’s description of her as a “long-time warrior for the MAHA movement.”
Nicole Saphier background and vaccine positions - Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr. “Camelot Revisited.” The New Yorker, May 29, 1995. Examines Jacqueline Kennedy’s November 1963 interview with Theodore H. White and the construction of the “Camelot” image surrounding John F. Kennedy’s presidency.
Camelot Revisited - National Park Service. “Commemoration, Memorialization, and Legacy: An Exploration of the Public and Private Memory of John F. Kennedy and His Presidency.” Includes material from Jacqueline Kennedy’s interview with Theodore White concerning the Camelot imagery subsequently associated with the Kennedy presidency.
National Park Service Kennedy legacy materials - History. “Why Is JFK Associated With ‘Camelot’?” Reviews Jacqueline Kennedy’s role in establishing the Camelot image and Theodore White’s later acknowledgment that he had allowed himself to become her “instrument in labeling the myth.”
History of the Kennedy Camelot narrative - The New Yorker. “What Does Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Actually Want?” August 2024. Profile discussing Kennedy’s personal journals and his description of his “lust demons” as his “greatest defect,” along with his account of addiction and recovery.
New Yorker profile of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
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September 20, 2026
Happy Constitution Week!
The Night James Madison Froze for Your Religious Freedom
A hijacked ship, a runaway congregation, jailed Baptist preachers, and a snowy churchyard in Madison County, Virginia
| DR. ROBERT W. MALONESEP 20 | |
Audio Version:
By: Robert W. Malone, MD, MS, and Jill Glasspool Malone, PhD
In January 1789, snow covered the ground around a plain wooden church at the foot of the Blue Ridge. Inside, a German-speaking Lutheran congregation finished its worship service. Two fiddlers played afterward, because this congregation loved music. Then the whole crowd went outside to hear two young Virginians argue about the new Constitution.
One was James Madison, age thirty-seven. The other was James Monroe, age thirty. Both would later become President. That winter they were rivals for a seat in the first United States Congress, and each wanted the votes of the families standing in the snow.
Madison was an unlikely figure for the rough-and-tumble of Virginia politics. He was small and slightly built, and by his own later account was no commanding public speaker. Monroe, seven years younger, had already been wounded fighting in the Revolution. Yet here they were, campaigning against each other in the Virginia countryside in the middle of winter.
Madison told the story forty years later to his young friend Nicholas Trist. He called the congregation “a nest of Dutchmen” whose votes might tip the election. He remembered keeping the audience outdoors in the snow while the candidates discussed “constitutional subjects.” Riding home afterward, Madison froze his nose. As an old man, he would point to the scar on its left side and call it a battle wound (Montpelier 2021)
That church still stands proudly. Hebron Lutheran Church, in Madison County, Virginia, is the oldest church building in continuous Lutheran use in America (Virginia DHR 1971). Jill and I farm on Hebron Valley Road, just a couple of miles from the church.
Madison won that 1789 election by 336 votes. Within months, he introduced the amendments that became the Bill of Rights. The families who worshipped in that church, and whose dead now lie in its churchyard, had been fighting for seventy years for what would become the First Amendment’s opening guarantee: that government could neither establish a religion nor prohibit its free exercise.
A Hijacked Voyage
In 1717, about eighty Lutherans from southwestern Germany waited in London for passage to Pennsylvania. William Penn’s colony there offered land and freedom of worship. While they waited, they worshipped at a German Lutheran church in London and formally organized themselves as a congregation. That congregation would eventually become Hebron Lutheran Church, and it still worships there today (Germanna Foundation 2019).
Their departure was delayed when their captain, Andrew Tarbett, was thrown into debtors’ prison. While he negotiated with his creditors, the German families remained stranded in London, and their limited savings continued to drain away.
Tarbett had another connection that would prove consequential. Earlier that year, he had met Virginia Governor Alexander Spotswood, who had let ship captains know that he wanted German settlers for his frontier lands and was willing to pay their transportation costs. When Tarbett finally secured his release and sailed, he did not take his passengers to Pennsylvania as promised. He took them to Virginia instead. Tarbett later claimed that storms had blown the ship off course (Germanna Foundation 2019).
The families arrived in Virginia penniless, in a colony they had never intended to enter. Spotswood paid Tarbett for their passage, and the Germans were then held to seven years of labor on Spotswood’s frontier lands along the Rapidan River. They would later dispute that they owed him anything at all, and surviving records cast doubt that they had any agreement with him. They had contracted for passage to Pennsylvania, where they expected land and religious freedom.
They had contracted for passage to Pennsylvania, where they expected land and religious freedom. Instead, they were taken to Virginia against their wishes and forced into seven years of labor for Alexander Spotswood, Virginia’s royal governor, the Crown-appointed official who effectively ruled the colony.
The Escape to Hebron Valley
Families who have lived in this valley for generations tell the next part as an escape. Spotswood, the story goes, intended to hold the Germans to their disputed seven years of labor and then keep them even longer. Some of the men slipped away at night and scouted west toward the mountains. They found a fertile valley, enriched by centuries of river sediment, where the Robinson River comes down from the Blue Ridge. Then, on another night, the story says, the whole community left Spotswood behind and settled there.
The court records confirm the conflict behind the legend. Between 1723 and 1725, Spotswood sued many of the Germans, claiming they still owed him labor and money and attempting to prevent them from leaving (GRIVA 2026). The suits were tried in Spotsylvania County, named for Spotswood, before juries drawn from his own social class. The Germans answered that, by law, they owed him nothing.
They took their case beyond the local courts and petitioned the House of Burgesses, the elected lower house of Virginia’s colonial legislature. The colonial Council ultimately ordered the King’s deputy attorney in the county to defend them. Spotswood recovered only a fraction of what he demanded (Blankenbaker n.d.a). By 1726, the families had secured land patents, the colonial grants that gave them legal title to their own land, in the Robinson River valley (Germanna Foundation 2013). Their plea to the Burgesses was the congregation’s first petition to a Virginia legislature.
The valley eventually took a name from Scripture. In the Book of Numbers, Moses sends twelve men ahead to scout Canaan. They reach Hebron and bring back a cluster of grapes so heavy that two men carry it on a pole. They report a land flowing with milk and honey (Numbers 13:23, 13:27). The German settlers had also sent men ahead to scout the country before moving their families into the valley. Anyone who has seen this valley in June, or fished the Robinson River, can understand why they stayed. Many anglers consider it among the finest trout streams in Virginia.
The settlers first worshipped in a log building they called the “German Chapel.” In 1734, Pastor John Caspar Stoever and two members of the congregation sailed all the way back to Europe to raise money for a permanent church, a school, and a second pastor. The present Hebron Lutheran Church was built in 1740 (Hebron Lutheran Church Foundation n.d.).
The “Established” Church and Forced Taxation
Freedom from Spotswood did not mean religious freedom. In colonial Virginia, the Church of England was the established church. “Establishment” had a very practical meaning: the government recognized and supported one favored church, collected taxes for its clergy, granted it legal privileges, and regulated the ability of other denominations to preach and worship. It is this meaning of “establishment” that survives in the opening words of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”
Every household was assessed parish taxes, often paid in tobacco, to support the local Anglican minister and the glebe, which was the term for the farm and residence provided for his use. The Lutherans of the Robinson River therefore paid taxes to support the established Anglican church while also supporting their own pastor and chapel.
The Baptists fared far worse. Beginning in 1768, Virginia county magistrates jailed Baptist preachers under laws governing public order for preaching without a license. On June 4 of that year, the sheriff of Spotsylvania seized John Waller, Lewis Craig, and James Childs. The magistrates offered to free them if they promised not to preach in the county for a year and a day. They refused. As guards marched them through the streets of Fredericksburg to jail, the three men sang an Isaac Watts hymn: “Broad is the road that leads to death” (James 1900, 29, 213).
Jail did not silence them. One Anglican churchman complained that the Baptists simply preached through the prison windows (James 1900, 38). At one jail, authorities built a high plank fence in front of the windows to prevent prisoners from preaching to people outside. Their followers raised a handkerchief on a pole above the fence as a signal that a congregation had gathered, and a prisoner preached through the boards to a crowd he could not even see (James 1900, 214).
The Culpeper jail, a short ride from Hebron, held Baptist preachers James Ireland, Elijah Craig, and others at different times. Near Culpeper Courthouse, attackers caught a Baptist layman named Thomas Waford at a spring and beat him for helping arrange the preachers’ meetings. He carried the scars past his eightieth year (James 1900, 30, 211).
Much of this history survives because Charles F. James, a Baptist minister who had himself pastored in Culpeper, went back to the Virginia Assembly journals, original petitions, and the letters of Madison and Jefferson. In his 1900 Documentary History of the Struggle for Religious Liberty in Virginia, he printed the documents chronologically so readers could examine the evidence themselves (James 1900, 7, 8). James wrote partly to rebut Patrick Henry’s grandson in a public dispute over which denomination deserved the most credit for securing religious liberty in Virginia. He made no secret of his Baptist perspective, but his lasting contribution was to gather the original documents and let them tell much of the story.
Toleration Is Not Liberty
Toleration means the state permits your church to exist. But permission can also be withdrawn. Under toleration, the government still claims the power to decide which religions are acceptable, to license preachers, and to tax people for the support of its favored church.
Religious liberty rests on a fundamentally different principle: the state has no authority over a person’s conscience. James defined it as the natural right of every person to worship according to conscience, with no earthly power entitled to compel religious conformity or tax anyone for religion (James 1900, 9).
That distinction became important in June 1776, as Virginia was declaring its independence from Britain. George Mason had drafted the Virginia Declaration of Rights, the document that would later become an important model for the United States Bill of Rights. James Madison, then just twenty-five years old and a young delegate from Orange County, played a decisive role in shaping its protection of religious liberty.
Mason’s draft promised “the fullest toleration” in religion. Madison objected. Toleration still left government in charge, because the state retained the power to decide which religions it would tolerate. Madison pushed instead for religion to be recognized as a natural right, and the final Declaration proclaimed that “all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience.”
The change was more than semantics. Toleration was permission granted by government. Free exercise was a right government was bound to respect. Thirteen years later, Madison would carry that principle into the amendments to the United States Constitution that became the Bill of Rights.
That fall, petitions poured into the first legislature of the newly independent Commonwealth of Virginia. On October 22, 1776, one arrived from the Robinson River valley. The “German congregation in the county of Culpeper” complained that its members were still being forced to pay parish charges to support the established Anglican church while also supporting their own church. They asked to be freed from those charges, except those supporting their own church and the poor, and sought the same legal standing for their ministers that Lutheran ministers enjoyed in Pennsylvania (James 1900, 70). That same year, under their new pastor Jacob Franck, the congregation adopted a written church constitution (Blankenbaker n.d.b).
The Hebron congregation was asking for equal treatment within the existing system. The Baptists went further. With petitions carrying about ten thousand signatures, they demanded an end to the religious establishment itself (James 1900, 184). Together, these petitions helped produce a partial victory. In 1776, Virginia ended the requirement that religious dissenters, meaning those who did not belong to the established Anglican church, pay taxes to support it. In 1779, the legislature went further and ended government payment of Anglican clergy altogether (James 1900, 184, 187).
The Assessment Fight
With the Revolution won, the defenders of government-supported religion changed tactics. In 1784, Patrick Henry backed what was called a “general assessment,” essentially a statewide tax for the support of religion. Unlike the old system, which supported the established Anglican church, taxpayers could direct their contribution to the Christian church of their choice. The Episcopalians supported the plan. So did much of the Presbyterian clergy, even though Presbyterians had fought against the old Anglican establishment. Many Presbyterian laypeople opposed it (James 1900, 189). Madison observed that the Presbyterian clergy seemed as ready to create an establishment that included them as they had been to tear down the one that excluded them (James 1900, 196).
Henry’s proposal could be presented as religious equality because the money would no longer go exclusively to one denomination. Madison saw a more fundamental problem: government would still possess the power to tax citizens for religion. In his 1785 Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, he warned that the same authority that could force a citizen to contribute “three pence only of his property” to one establishment could force him “to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever” (Madison 1785). Once government has the power to collect and distribute money for religion, it also acquires the power to decide which religions qualify to receive it.
The assessment collapsed in 1785 under a flood of petitions. In January 1786, the Virginia General Assembly passed Thomas Jefferson’s Statute for Religious Freedom, which Jefferson had first proposed seven years earlier. The statute went further than merely ending support for a particular denomination. It declared that no person could be compelled to attend or support any religious worship, place, or ministry, and that religious belief could neither diminish nor enlarge a person’s civil rights.
James gave the Baptists much of the credit for defeating the assessment. He quoted a Baptist historian’s judgment that the Baptists were the only religious society that had plainly opposed the proposal as a religious body (James 1900, 190).
No record has yet been found showing the Hebron congregation petitioning as a body in this final fight. Their pastor, Jacob Franck, had left in 1778, and the church lacked a steady pastor until 1787 (Blankenbaker n.d.b). The original Culpeper County petitions survive at the Library of Virginia, leaving open the possibility that individual members of the Hebron community signed them even if the congregation itself did not.
A Promise Made in the Snow
The federal Constitution of 1787 contained no bill of rights. Virginia’s Baptists feared that a strong national government might someday claim the same powers over religion that Virginia’s colonial government had exercised. In 1788, opponents of the Constitution in Orange County nominated John Leland, the county’s leading Baptist preacher, to run against Madison for a seat in Virginia’s ratifying convention.
Leland later told the story to Massachusetts Governor George Briggs. Riding home from Philadelphia, Madison went out of his way to visit Leland and spent half a day explaining the Constitution and answering his concerns. When the two men later faced the voters of Orange County, Madison climbed onto a hogshead, a huge wooden barrel used to pack and ship tobacco, which had been stood upright as an improvised platform. He spoke for two hours. Leland later conceded that Madison was “not particularly a pleasing or eloquent speaker.” When the crowd called for Leland to speak, he climbed onto the same tobacco barrel and fully endorsed Madison. Madison won the election (James 1900, 152, 156, 157).
But the political fight was not over. Patrick Henry had opposed Madison during Virginia’s battle over ratification of the Constitution. After ratification, Henry and his allies in the Virginia legislature denied Madison a seat in the new United States Senate. They then drew Madison’s congressional district to include counties where opposition to the new Constitution was strong and recruited James Monroe to run against him (Montpelier 2021).
Madison campaigned on a promise. On January 2, 1789, he wrote to Baptist minister George Eve that, if elected to Congress, he would work for amendments protecting religious liberty, “particularly the rights of Conscience in the fullest latitude.”(Madison 1789).
Later that month, Madison stood outside the German Lutheran church at Hebron, in the snow, and made his case again. His listeners included the descendants of families who had been diverted to Virginia against their will, forced into years of labor under Spotswood, and later taxed to support a church that was not their own. Their congregation had petitioned Virginia for relief from those religious taxes. Madison was now asking for their votes while promising constitutional protection for freedom of conscience. He carried the district by 336 votes (Virginia Synod 2019).
On June 8, 1789, Madison kept that promise. He rose in the first United States Congress and introduced the amendments that would become the Bill of Rights. His proposed language declared that no person’s civil rights would be abridged because of religious belief or worship and that “nor shall any national religion be established.” Congress revised the wording, and the states ratified the final text in December 1791:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
The two phrases now had a history behind them. “Free exercise” reached back to the change Madison had fought for as a twenty-five-year-old delegate in Virginia in 1776: religious belief was a right, not something government merely tolerated. “Establishment” described the system the Hebron families knew firsthand, in which government favored a church, supported its clergy through taxation, and imposed those costs even upon people who worshipped elsewhere.
For the families at Hebron, religious establishment had not been an abstract political idea. It meant being forced to pay taxes, often in tobacco, to support the Anglican church while also supporting their own Lutheran church. The First Amendment now prohibited the new federal government from establishing and supporting a favored religion, while also protecting the people’s right to freely practice their own.
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What Virginia Taught the Court
For more than a century after its adoption, the First Amendment restricted the federal government, not the states. States could maintain their own arrangements between government and religion. Massachusetts, for example, continued a system of public support for religion until 1833.
That changed gradually after the Civil War and the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. In 1947, in Everson v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment’s prohibition against an establishment of religion also applied to state and local governments. In deciding what “establishment” meant, the justices went back to the struggle that had taken place in Virginia more than 160 years earlier.
Writing for the majority, Justice Hugo Black recounted Virginia’s fight over religious taxation, Madison’s opposition to Patrick Henry’s general assessment, and Jefferson’s Statute for Religious Freedom. Justice Wiley Rutledge went even further in dissent, attaching Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments to his opinion in full (Everson1947). The justices disagreed over how the First Amendment should apply to the particular case before them, but both sides treated the Virginia struggle as important evidence of what the prohibition against religious establishment was intended to prevent.
This history matters today. Modern disputes involving government support for religious schools, religious activity in public schools, and public funding that reaches religious institutions continue to raise the same underlying question that confronted Madison in Virginia: where does protection of religious liberty end and government support of religion begin?
James had also documented an uncomfortable pattern in the earlier Virginia fight. Some clergy who demanded religious liberty when excluded from the established system became more receptive to government support once their own denominations were offered a share. Madison saw the danger in the arrangement itself. Once government collects and distributes money for religious purposes, government must also decide which institutions and activities qualify to receive it. That was precisely the kind of entanglement between civil authority and religion that he had opposed in Virginia.
Back to the Churchyard
Hebron appears earlier in Scripture as well. Abraham, still a foreigner and sojourner in Canaan, bought his first piece of land there, a field containing the cave in which he buried his wife Sarah (Genesis 23). The first land Abraham actually owned in the promised land was a grave.
The graveyard at Hebron Lutheran Church carries something of that same meaning. The families buried there descended from people who had intended to settle freely in Pennsylvania, but instead were carried to Virginia against their will and forced into years of labor under Virginia’s royal governor. They eventually left him for a valley at the foot of the Blue Ridge. There they farmed their own land, paid taxes to support a church they did not attend, and built and supported a Lutheran church of their own. In 1776, they petitioned the new Commonwealth of Virginia for equal treatment. Their children and grandchildren would later stand outside that same church in the snow while James Madison asked for their votes and promised to protect their freedom of conscience.
Those families have put down generational roots that endure to this day. Their surnames still fill Madison County’s deed books and church rolls, and can still be read on the stones in Hebron’s graveyard. Uhl became Yowell, Öhler became Aylor, Weber became Weaver, and Klaar became Clore (Germanna Foundation 2013). The chairman of the Madison County Board of Supervisors today is a Yowell, and the county’s sheriff since 2019 is a Weaver (Madison County 2026; VPAP 2019). An Utz married to a Fray represented Madison in the House of Delegates a century ago (Swem and Williams 1918).
Madison County has also grown far more slowly than its neighbors. Between 1980 and 2020, Culpeper County more than doubled in population, and Greene County nearly tripled, while Madison grew by only 14 percent, to 13,837 people (US Census Bureau 2020). Geography, commuter highways, and the national park explain some of that difference. Jill and I think something else may be at work as well: a deeply rooted local conviction that good bottomland belongs in hay and cattle rather than subdivisions. Families whose ancestors fought to own and farm this ground are not eager to give it up for something as transient as money.
If you ever come to visit Jill and me, take the back roads instead of Route 29. Follow the Robinson River along the mountains, past hayfields, cattle, and some of the best trout water in Virginia. Turn onto Hebron Church Road and stop at the plain wooden church at the foot of the valley. Walk among the stones in the graveyard. The congregation still worships there on Sunday mornings. Our farm lies just over the hill, about two miles away as the crow flies.
RWM/JGM
Jill and I write this from a farm on Hebron Valley Road, just over the hill from the church in this story. Essays like this take time in archives, churchyards, and county courthouses, and reader support makes that possible. Subscribe free or paid for part two tomorrow, and for more stories from the Piedmont we are gathering for an upcoming book, tentatively titled Who Owns This Land?
References
Blankenbaker, John. n.d.a. “Germanna History Note 171.” Germanna Foundation. https://germanna.org/wp-content/uploads/history/note0171.html.
Blankenbaker, John. n.d.b. “Germanna History Notes, Page 17.” https://homepages.rootsweb.com/~george/johnsgermnotes/germhs17.html.
Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Township. 1947. 330 U.S. 1.
Germanna Foundation. 2013. “Who Were the German Settlers in the Robinson River Valley?” By John Blankenbaker. September 11. https://germanna.org/2013/09/11/who-were-the-german-settlers-in-the-robinson-river-valley/.
Germanna Foundation. 2019. “Germanna Record 18: The Second Germanna Colony and Other Pioneers.” https://germanna.org/2019/06/12/germanna-record-18-the-second-germanna-colony-and-other-pioneers/.
GRIVA (Genealogical Research Institute of Virginia). 2026. “Germans in Colonial Virginia.” April 7. https://griva.org/april-7-2026-germans-in-colonial-virginia/.
Hebron Valley Church Facebook page (for many of the photos scattered throughout this article)
Hebron Lutheran Church Foundation. n.d. “History of the Hebron Lutheran Church.” https://hebronlutheranchurchfoundation.com/history/.
James, Charles F. 1900. Documentary History of the Struggle for Religious Liberty in Virginia. Lynchburg, VA: J. P. Bell Company. Digitized by Cornell University Library, Internet Archive. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029255169. Full PDF also available at [INSERT MALONE.NEWS LINK].
Madison County, Virginia. 2026. “Board of Supervisors Members.” https://www.madisonco.virginia.gov/618/Board-of-Supervisors-Members.
Madison, James. 1785. “Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments.” Founders Online, National Archives.
Madison, James. 1789. Letter to George Eve, January 2. Founders Online, National Archives.
Montpelier. 2021. “The Congressional Election of 1789.” James Madison’s Montpelier. https://www.montpelier.org/the-congressional-election-of-1789/.
Pennsylvania Society of the Cincinnati. n.d. “B. Gen. Peter Muhlenberg.” https://pasocietyofthecincinnati.org/gallery_post/b-gen-peter-muhlenberg.
Swem, Earl G., and John W. Williams. 1918. A Register of the General Assembly of Virginia, 1776-1918. Richmond: Davis Bottom, Superintendent of Public Printing.
US Census Bureau. 2020. “Decennial Census of Population and Housing, 2020.” Washington, DC: US Department of Commerce.
Virginia Department of Historic Resources. 1971. “Hebron Lutheran Church (056-0006).” https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/historic-registers/056-0006/.
Virginia Synod, ELCA. 2019. “The History of Hebron Lutheran Church.” https://vasynod.org/history-hebron-lutheran-church/.
VPAP (Virginia Public Access Project). 2019. “Election Results: Madison County, November 5, 2019.” https://www.vpap.org/electionresults/20191105/local/madison-county-va.
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September 18, 2026
The Obama Machine: Netflix Was Only the Beginning
From storytelling and “misinformation” to the regulation of AI
| DR. ROBERT W. MALONE SEP 17 | |
Audio Version:
The deeper story of Netflix is not simply that another American corporation drifted left, adopted DEI, and began producing programming that many Americans find politically tiresome. It is the story of how entertainment, politics, government, technology, and the management of information have gradually converged, with Barack Obama and the political network surrounding him appearing repeatedly at the intersections. Once those connections are placed on a timeline, Netflix begins to look less like the story itself and more like one piece of a much larger post-presidential Obama project involving culture, political organization, information management, and now artificial intelligence, all accompanied by an expanding argument for regulation and control of the systems through which Americans communicate and obtain information. The justification offered again and again is the protection of democracy. The uncomfortable question is what happens to democracy when protecting it increasingly requires someone to decide which information the public should be permitted to hear, and even how “democracy ” is defined.
The story begins, strangely enough, with Netflix co-founder Marc Bernays Randolph. Randolph was Netflix’s first CEO and came from one of the most remarkable families in the history of modern persuasion. Sigmund Freud was a relative, but the more relevant connection was Edward Bernays, Freud’s nephew and Randolph’s great-uncle, commonly described as the father of modern public relations. Robert and I explored Bernays and the history of modern propaganda in considerable depth in our book PsyWar: Enforcing the New World Order. But the essential point here is that Bernays saw public relations as something far more powerful than simply selling soap or cigarettes.
His famous 1928 book was bluntly titled Propaganda, and his central insight was that human behavior could be influenced by manipulating desires, fears, symbols, and social expectations, often without the people being influenced recognizing what was happening. Randolph himself has acknowledged the peculiar family connection. His own professional career was built around direct marketing, branding, and consumer behavior, and he has remarked upon how closely his work resembled Bernays’s.
Randolph left the company in 2003, long before Netflix became the cultural colossus it is today, and pretending otherwise would turn an interesting historical connection into an unsupported conspiracy theory. But what Netflix subsequently became would probably have fascinated Uncle Edward. A company that began by mailing DVDs eventually built one of the most powerful storytelling and behavioral-data platforms in human history, capable of learning what hundreds of millions of people watch, recommending what they should watch next, and placing cultural narratives directly into their homes. The question is not whether Netflix possesses that power. Obviously it does. The question is what happened when the people running and influencing that institution began explicitly viewing storytelling as a mechanism for changing society.
Netflix formally incorporated “inclusion” into its corporate culture in 2017. This was not confined to the unobjectionable proposition that qualified people should receive equal opportunities to work there. Netflix explicitly connected representation inside the corporation with representation on the screen: who gets hired, who gets to tell stories, and who tells stories with which stories audiences ultimately see.
The company adopted an institutional philosophy that changing the composition and worldview of the people producing entertainment would change the entertainment itself, and influence culture worldwide. What critics later called “woke Netflix” was therefore not simply an accidental accumulation of unusually progressive writers and producers. Netflix itself described inclusion as part of the machinery through which content was created.
Then came 2018. On March 28, Netflix appointed Susan Rice to its board of directors. Rice was not a Hollywood producer or entertainment executive. She had been Barack Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations and his National Security Advisor, one of the most powerful foreign-policy officials in the Obama administration.
Less than two months later, on May 21, Netflix announced an extraordinary production partnership with Barack and Michelle Obama. The Obamas created Higher Ground Productions and entered a multi-year agreement under which Netflix would distribute their films, television programs, documentaries, and other productions to a service that already reached approximately 125 million member households in 190 countries.
This was not a former president retiring to write his memoirs. It was a former president entering the global entertainment business in order to exert cultural and political influence, and the Obamas were remarkably candid about why. Michelle Obama explained that storytelling could inspire people and make them think differently about the world around them. Barack Obama later explained that Higher Ground had been created to “harness the power of storytelling.” Its productions would address race, class, democracy, and civil rights, and would not merely entertain. They would “educate, connect, and inspire.” Netflix later described Higher Ground as producing stories that embodied the values the Obamas had championed throughout their lives. Those are not accusations made by conservative critics. Those are descriptions supplied by the Obamas and Netflix.
This is also why the endless argument about whether individual “woke” Netflix programs receive good ratings misses much of the point. Some have succeeded spectacularly. Others have failed spectacularly. Netflix itself remains enormously successful, and people continue watching thrillers, romances, crime dramas, children’s programming, Korean television, fantasy, documentaries, and action movies by the billions of hours. But cultural influence does not require an audience to deliberately select something called A Progressive Guide to Social Justice. In many ways, that would defeat the purpose.
The most powerful cultural assumptions are often the ones the audience is not consciously debating at all. Ideas about race, sex, gender, marriage, government, capitalism, social democracy, American history, and social justice can be incorporated into entertainment until they simply become part of the fictional world being consumed. The viewer never has to agree to attend the lecture because there appears to be no lecture. The action movie gets the viewer through the door. The cultural assumptions come with the subscription.
Susan Rice’s career provides an unusually clear illustration of how thoroughly the political and cultural worlds had begun to merge. Rice joined Netflix’s board in 2018 and remained there until January 2021, when she left the company and returned to government as President Biden’s Domestic Policy Advisor. There she became centrally involved in an administration that elevated “equity” into an organizing principle across the federal bureaucracy. Rice left the Biden White House in May 2023. Four months later, she was back on Netflix’s board. Obama administration to Netflix. Netflix to Biden administration. Biden administration back to Netflix.
Corporate directors operate at the level of governance, executive oversight, leadership, risk, and institutional strategy, and Susan Rice is no different. The more important point is what the revolving door reveals. Government, political networks, Silicon Valley, and entertainment increasingly draw from the same pool of people carrying many of the same assumptions about race, equity, democracy, information, and social change.
Barack Obama, meanwhile, never really left politics. He changed the mechanisms through which influence could be exercised. The Obama Foundation develops future civic and political leaders. The Obama Presidential Center is intended to carry his political philosophy and institutional legacy into another generation. Higher Ground operates in entertainment and culture. Obama himself has remained an influential Democratic adviser, fundraiser, and political figure. Kamala Harris had a longstanding relationship with Obama, and Obama supported Joe Biden’s selection of Harris as his vice-presidential running mate in 2020. Obama also supported Harris’ selection as Biden’s replacement.
What happened after Harris was installed without a Democrat primary is considerably more revealing. Once Harris became the presumptive nominee, a substantial portion of the Obama political machinery moved into her campaign. David Plouffe, Obama’s 2008 campaign manager and one of the architects of his political operation, became a senior Harris adviser. Stephanie Cutter, Obama’s former communications director and 2012 deputy campaign manager, joined the operation. Other Obama veterans followed, while Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon was herself an Obama campaign veteran. Obama’s presidency had ended years earlier, but the network had not. Political power had become institutional power, capable of surviving the individual administration that created it.
Then came Stanford, and this is where the Netflix story becomes considerably more consequential. On April 21, 2022, Obama delivered a major address at an event co-hosted by the Stanford Cyber Policy Center and the Obama Foundation called Challenges to Democracy in the Digital Information Realm. The subject was not primarily foreign affairs, taxation, health care, or any of the conventional issues associated with a former president. It was the architecture of information itself. Obama discussed algorithms, social media, disinformation, platform responsibility, Section 230, and the effect of digital information systems on democracy. His conclusion included an extraordinarily important sentence: “Regulation has to be part of the answer.” The Obama Foundation described the larger project as finding a new “North Star for the internet.”
What does still nag at me, though, was my failure to fully appreciate at the time just how susceptible we had become to lies and conspiracy theories despite having spent years being a target of disinformation myself. Social media companies already make choices about what is or is not allowed on their platforms and how that content appears, both explicitly through content moderation and implicitly through algorithms. The problem is we often don’t know what principles govern those decisions in some cases, industry standards may replace or substitute for regulation, but regulation has to be part of the answer.
Barak Obama, Stanford, 2022
There is another fact about Obama’s Stanford appearance that makes the speech considerably more significant. Stanford was not simply a prestigious university providing a convenient auditorium. The event was co-hosted by the Obama Foundation and Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center, and housed within that same Cyber Policy Center was the Stanford Internet Observatory, one of the central academic participants in the emerging government-industry-academic machinery for monitoring what Americans said online. The Observatory helped lead the Election Integrity Partnership, which worked with social-media companies to identify and refer election-related content to the government for potential action.
A later Republican-led House Judiciary investigation produced internal correspondence stating that the Election Integrity Partnership had been created “at the request of DHS/CISA,” along with the underlying Jira ticket system used to track supposedly problematic speech. The Stanford operation subsequently participated in the Virality Project, which extended this machinery from election-related claims into COVID-19 and vaccine narratives. Robert himself appears in those records. His supposed offense was his June 2021 Tucker Carlson interview, in which he argued that the risks of COVID vaccination outweighed the benefits for teenagers and young adults. But the Jira record did not merely describe the claim being monitored. It also categorized Robert’s affiliations as “right wing” and labeled him “general anti-vaccination.” The House Judiciary Committee subsequently concluded that the EIP’s system disproportionately targeted conservative speakers.
This information-management machinery was not merely academic. The consequences for the people caught in it were real. Robert was permanently removed from Twitter on December 29, 2021, wiping out an audience of more than half a million followers at the height of the national debate over COVID vaccine policy. His professional LinkedIn presence was also ultimately permanently banned, while his reach on other major platforms was restricted or diminished. The documentary record shows that, during this same period, Robert was being tracked through the EIP/Virality Project’s Jira system, where his political affiliation was explicitly categorized as “right wing” alongside the supposedly offending vaccine claims. The practical result is difficult to dismiss: a credentialed scientist publicly challenging government COVID policy was simultaneously being monitored within the government-linked misinformation apparatus and losing access to the dominant digital platforms through which he communicated with the public. Twitter eventually restored his account after the company changed ownership. LinkedIn did not. The audience, professional network, and reach destroyed by those decisions were not restored simply because one account was later returned.
That makes what happened at Stanford in April 2022 difficult to dismiss as an unrelated academic exercise. The very first panel at Obama’s event was titled “The Trust Problem” and asked, “What is the role of the U.S. government in facilitating consensus and reducing polarization at home?” Its moderator was Renée DiResta, then research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory. Obama’s keynote is worth reading in that institutional context.
At an event co-hosted by his own foundation and the Cyber Policy Center that housed the Stanford Internet Observatory, Obama argued that online disinformation threatened democracy, called for reconsideration of Section 230, and said explicitly that “regulation has to be part of the answer.”Even more revealingly, he described the internet and social media as tools that “we can remake,” adding that society must decide what it values and then use those tools to advance those values.
What this all establishes is a striking convergence: Obama was publicly calling for greater intervention in the digital information environment from within an institutional ecosystem already deeply involved in building mechanisms through which government, academia, and technology companies could identify, refer, moderate, suppress, or otherwise reduce the reach of information deemed false or harmful.
Obama’s language deserves considerably more scrutiny than it received. The former president who had entered the global storytelling business was now making the regulation of the information environment itself a major part of his post-presidential agenda. The argument was presented in the reassuring vocabulary that has become familiar throughout the Western political establishment: democracy, safety, truth, responsible platforms, healthier discourse, misinformation, and protection from manipulation.
But underneath every one of those abstractions sits a very old and very dangerous political question. Who decides what constitutes misinformation? Who decides which speech is dangerous? Who determines what gets amplified, suppressed, demonetized, labeled, or removed? And what happens when the government officials, foundations, academics, corporations, and technology companies answering those questions overwhelmingly share the same political and cultural worldview? What happens when that viewpoint is skewed by globalism, leftist propaganda, and woke ideologies?
Those questions became considerably less theoretical during the Biden administration. Subsequent litigation, later known as Murthy v. Missouri, exposed extensive communications between federal officials and social-media companies about COVID-19, vaccines, elections, and alleged misinformation. The Fifth Circuit reviewed that record and concluded that the White House and Surgeon General’s office likely violated the First Amendment, finding that officials coerced platforms and significantly encouraged their content-moderation decisions. The Supreme Court refused to rule that this conduct was constitutional. Instead, the six-justice majority explicitly said, “We begin—and end—with standing,” concluding that the plaintiffs had not established the standing necessary to obtain a forward-looking injunction and that the Court therefore lacked jurisdiction to reach the merits. In other words, the Supreme Court left the central First Amendment question unresolved.
But the underlying communications were not hypothetical, and they did not disappear because the Supreme Court disposed of the case on standing. White House officials flagged content to platforms, demanded explanations for material that remained online, pressed for faster and more aggressive enforcement, threatened social media companies if they didn’t comply with their censorship demands, and questioned the platforms’ moderation policies. Facebook personnel discussed “Specific Asks from the White House.” Press Secretary Jen Psaki publicly acknowledged that the administration was flagging “problematic posts” for Facebook. The Supreme Court never resolved the legal question of when those interactions crossed the constitutional line, though the Fifth Circuit did. What remains is the documentary record itself: the federal government had inserted itself into the machinery controlling the flow of information, pressuring private platforms over which Americans would be heard, which opinions would be suppressed, and which version of events would be allowed to circulate.
That history changes the meaning of pleasant-sounding discussions about creating a healthier information environment. For Americans whose speech was restricted, labeled, suppressed, or algorithmically buried during the COVID era, the issue is not theoretical. The danger exists whenever government officials, politically aligned institutions, and enormously powerful information companies begin sharing assumptions about what constitutes dangerous information. No smoky room is required. No secret memorandum has to be signed. Institutional alignment can accomplish a remarkable amount when the people staffing government, foundations, universities, media companies, and technology platforms have already reached similar conclusions about what constitutes truth, misinformation, equity, democracy, social justice, and acceptable speech.
Seen this way, Obama’s post-presidential career resolves into three parallel channels of influence. The first is political power: the Obama Foundation, Democratic Party relationships, fundraising, advising, and a political network whose personnel continue appearing in presidential campaigns long after Obama left office. The second is information power: Stanford, disinformation, algorithms, Section 230, platform responsibility, and increasingly explicit arguments that government regulation should help manage the digital information environment. The third is cultural power: Higher Ground and Netflix, using what Obama himself calls the “power of storytelling” to address race, class, democracy, and civil rights while reaching an audience no political campaign could approach.
“Politics is downstream of culture”
Andrew Brietbart
“Politics is downstream from culture” is the most famous quote attributed to Andrew Breitbart, the American media publisher and conservative commentator who passed away in 2012.
The phrase, often referred to as the “Breitbart Doctrine,” posits that political outcomes are a result of prevailing cultural values, beliefs, and norms. Consequently, the doctrine argues that to effect meaningful political change, one must first shift the broader culture. An axiom of this is that scientism has replaced religion, and this is associated with a priesthood of anointed physicians and scientists. And, as any theology student will attest, religion is upstream of culture.
These channels do not have to be centrally coordinated to reinforce one another. Politics determines rules. Information systems determine which arguments people encounter. Culture shapes many of the assumptions through which people interpret those arguments. One operates through elections and government. Another operates through algorithms, search, moderation, and information distribution. The third operates through stories, heroes, villains, historical narratives, children’s programming, documentaries, and entertainment. Taken together, they represent a far more sophisticated mechanism of cultural influence than anything Edward Bernays could have imagined when he wrote Propaganda nearly a century ago.
And now the same argument has arrived at artificial intelligence. In September 2026, at a Democratic fundraiser, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries asked Obama what Democrats should do about AI. Obama urged Democrats to make artificial intelligence a central part of their agenda and argued that, if Democrats regain control of the House after the midterm elections, they should establish a framework for a major public conversation about AI. He also urged future presidential candidates to develop clear AI agendas. Days later, Jeffries publicly identified AI as a high priority for House Democrats.
There are legitimate reasons to worry about artificial intelligence. Fraud, cybersecurity, autonomous weapons, labor displacement, deepfakes, privacy, and genuinely dangerous advanced systems deserve serious consideration. The existence of those problems does not establish that AI regulation is secretly a censorship program, and it would be foolish to make that assertion without evidence. But Obama’s history makes a different question unavoidable: what exactly will be regulated? Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming the machinery through which Americans search for information, summarize history, compare arguments, evaluate evidence, write, create media, and increasingly understand the world. Regulation of AI therefore has implications extending far beyond whether a chatbot produces a dangerous recipe or a convincing deepfake. The rules governing AI can potentially influence the boundaries within which machines are permitted to answer questions at all. It will be and already is the next frontier in government censorship.
That is why Obama’s sudden emphasis on AI cannot reasonably be viewed in isolation from his broader post-presidential project. At Stanford he argued that the information environment itself required intervention and that government regulation had to be part of the answer. Through Higher Ground, he explicitly embraced storytelling as a means of educating and changing how people understand the world. Through his Foundation he has made democracy, information, and leadership development continuing institutional projects. Through the Democratic Party his political network has remained remarkably durable.
Now he is urging congressional Democratic leadership to make regulation of the most powerful information technology ever created a central agenda after the midterms. This provides ample reason to scrutinize any regulatory architecture that gives government, politically aligned institutions, or dominant technology companies greater authority over what artificial intelligence may say, particularly when the justification once again arrives wrapped in the language of protecting democracy from dangerous information.
The timing deserves scrutiny. An almost unknown 27-year-old Anthropic researcher resigned and warned that AI could kill humanity. He announced his departure internally on Anthropic’s Slack, and roughly thirty minutes later the Wall Street Journal had the story. Only afterward did he publish his public resignation statement on X, where a network of AI-safety advocates immediately amplified it. Within days, the CEOs of some of the world’s largest AI companies were publicly calling for a slowdown, government standards and outside control of frontier models. But the regulatory agenda had not suddenly appeared with Coxon’s resignation.
Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis had already spent months converging on federal oversight of the technology they themselves dominate. Obama, meanwhile, had been talking privately with both Altman and Amodei about AI safety. Then, at a closed-door Democratic fundraiser, Hakeem Jeffries specifically raised Coxon’s resignation with Obama. Obama urged Jeffries to make AI a central Democratic agenda if his party retakes the House. Days later Jeffries was publicly demanding urgent action and invoking the CEOs’ call to slow development. This shows how quickly an industry-generated doomsday narrative traveled from a virtually unknown researcher, through the national media and America’s dominant AI companies, into a private conversation with a former president, and from there into the stated legislative agenda of the man who hopes to become the next Speaker of the House.
So who benefits from all of this regulation? The largest AI companies certainly can. OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and the other industry giants can afford armies of lawyers, compliance officers, safety researchers and government-relations specialists. A startup, university laboratory or independent developer cannot. Regulations requiring expensive testing, licensing and government approval can therefore protect the companies already dominating AI while making it far harder for new competitors to challenge them.
Government gains something too. An Obama political circle that has spent years arguing that the “information environment” must be managed and regulated now has an opportunity to help write the rules governing the technology that may soon become the world’s primary gateway to information. The extraordinary concentration of corporate and government power produced by their proposed solutions should scare us all.
Nor is this confined to the United States. Europe has already moved much further toward regulating online speech and artificial intelligence through the Digital Services Act and AI Act. But the internet does not respect national borders. Global technology companies that want access to Europe’s 450 million consumers must comply with European rules, and it can be easier to build those restrictions into their global platforms than maintain entirely separate systems. The result is the so-called “Brussels Effect”: European regulators can influence what Americans see, what platforms permit, and how AI behaves without Americans ever voting for a single one of them.
The Western world is deciding who will govern the information systems of the twenty-first century. Netflix initially looked like a story about an entertainment company that became political. It turns out to be a window into something much larger. Barack Obama’s post-presidential career has repeatedly converged on institutions that shape political leadership, popular culture, and the flow of information.
A government does not have to burn books to acquire enormous influence over political discourse. It can pressure platforms, define misinformation, regulate algorithms, establish rules for artificial intelligence, and encourage private institutions to police information according to standards government itself helped establish. At the same time, cultural institutions can normalize a political worldview through entertainment until ideas that were once controversial simply become the background assumptions of everyday life.
Each piece can be defended individually as reasonable. Netflix is only telling stories. Higher Ground is only making movies. Stanford is only studying disinformation. The Obama Foundation is only training leaders. Government officials are only protecting people from misinformation. Regulators are only making AI safe. The political network is only helping Democratic candidates win elections. Perhaps every individual involved sincerely believes exactly that. The problem appears when all of these pieces are placed beside one another and the direction of travel becomes visible. The danger is not necessarily a conspiracy. The danger is a system in which the same political assumptions increasingly dominate the institutions that produce culture, define misinformation, regulate information technology, train political leadership, and determine the permissible boundaries of digital speech.
That is why the question of whether Netflix has become “woke” now seems almost quaint. Netflix is only one piece of a much larger struggle over who gets to shape the stories Americans hear, which information Americans find, and increasingly which answers their machines are permitted to give them. Ronald Reagan famously warned that freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. The modern threat to that freedom may not arrive wearing jackboots or carrying a list of banned books. It may arrive promising safety, inclusion, equity, responsible information, and the protection of democracy itself. Edward Bernays understood a century ago that the most effective propaganda does not feel like propaganda.
Perhaps the most dangerous form of censorship is the one people never recognize as censorship at all, because someone else has already decided which stories they will hear, which facts they will find, and which ideas they will never encounter.
By: JGM/RWM
If this essay made you uncomfortable, good. It made me uncomfortable to research it. Connecting these dots takes time, primary documents, court records, congressional reports, corporate filings, and a willingness to follow the evidence wherever it leads. Malone News is reader-supported precisely because independence matters when the subject is who controls the information Americans are allowed to see.
If you value investigations like this, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. The best defense against a managed information environment is an independent one.
References
- Malone, Robert W., and Jill Glasspool Malone. PsyWar: Enforcing the New World Order. Skyhorse Publishing, 2024. See particularly the discussion of Edward Bernays, modern propaganda, the Election Integrity Partnership, Virality Project, Jira ticketing system, and censorship-industrial complex. The book documents the Jira entry concerning Robert Malone, including the descriptors “right wing” and “general anti-vaccination.”
- Bernays, Edward L. Propaganda. Horace Liveright, 1928. Foundational statement of Bernays’s theories concerning public opinion, persuasion, and the organized manipulation of attitudes.
- Netflix. “Ambassador Susan E. Rice Appointed to Netflix Board of Directors.” March 28, 2018. Rice, formerly Barack Obama’s National Security Advisor and U.N. Ambassador, joined Netflix’s board less than two months before the Obama production agreement was announced.
Netflix announcement - Netflix. “Netflix Forming Storytelling Partnership With Barack and Michelle Obama.” May 21, 2018. Announces the multi-year Higher Ground agreement and states that its productions would be available to Netflix’s then-125 million member households in 190 countries.
Netflix-Higher Ground announcement - Higher Ground Productions/Netflix. “Higher Ground Announces Upcoming Slate of Projects Exclusive to Netflix.” April 30, 2019. Particularly important for Obama’s statement that Higher Ground was created to “harness the power of storytelling” and that projects involving race, class, democracy and civil rights would educate as well as entertain.
Higher Ground project announcement - Netflix. “Inclusion at Netflix.” Netflix Careers. Netflix explicitly connects its internal inclusion policies to what appears on screen, stating that “Better representation on-screen starts with representation in the office.”
Netflix inclusion policy - Netflix. “Netflix Reappoints Ambassador Susan E. Rice to Its Board of Directors.” September 9, 2023. Documents Rice’s return after serving as Biden’s Domestic Policy Advisor.
Rice reappointment announcement - Netflix, Inc. 2026 Proxy Statement. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Confirms Rice’s continuing service on the Netflix board and Nominating and Governance Committee, and describes her government and public-policy expertise as relevant to Netflix.
Netflix 2026 proxy statement - Netflix, Inc. Form 8-K, June 5, 2026. SEC filing confirming Rice and the other Netflix directors were reelected at the 2026 annual meeting.
Netflix June 2026 SEC filing - Stanford Freeman Spogli Institute/Cyber Policy Center. “Challenges to Democracy in the Digital Information Realm.” April 21, 2022. Official program for the Obama Foundation/Stanford Cyber Policy Center event. Particularly relevant is Panel I, moderated by Stanford Internet Observatory research manager Renée DiResta, asking: “What is the role of the U.S. government in facilitating consensus and reducing polarization at home?”
Stanford event program and Obama transcript - Stanford University. “Disinformation is weakening democracy, Barack Obama said.” April 21, 2022. Stanford’s account of Obama’s keynote, including his statement that “regulation has to be part of the answer,” his discussion of Section 230, algorithms, AI/deepfakes and the information environment.
Stanford report on Obama’s speech - Obama Foundation. “President Obama Speaks at Stanford on Disinformation.” April 2022. The Foundation framed Obama’s project as establishing a new “North Star” for the internet and addressing the effects of the digital information environment on democracy.
- U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary and Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. Interim reports and supporting documents concerning CISA, the Election Integrity Partnership, Stanford Internet Observatory and the Virality Project. These materials form an important basis for the essay’s discussion of government-academic-platform relationships.
- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Missouri v. Biden, No. 23-30445, September 8, 2023. The appellate court agreed that some federal officials had likely coerced or significantly encouraged social-media censorship in violation of the First Amendment and modified the district court’s injunction accordingly.
Fifth Circuit opinion - Supreme Court of the United States. Murthy v. Missouri, 603 U.S. 43 (2024), decided June 26, 2024. The Court reversed on standing grounds rather than deciding whether the challenged government conduct violated the First Amendment.
Supreme Court opinion - Reuters. “How Obama boosted Harris and continues to shape the Democratic Party.” August 20, 2024. Documents Obama’s longstanding relationship with Kamala Harris, his advice to her after Biden’s withdrawal, and the movement of Obama veterans including David Plouffe and Stephanie Cutter into the Harris campaign.
Reuters report on Obama and Harris - The Wall Street Journal. “The Anonymous Math Geek Who Quit Anthropic—and Became the Face of AI Safety.” September 17, 2026. Detailed reconstruction of Jacob Coxon’s resignation from Anthropic, his contacts with AI-safety advocates, the timing of the Journal’s reporting and his subsequent public announcement, and the rapid amplification of his warnings.
Wall Street Journal investigation - The Wall Street Journal. “Anthropic Researcher Quits Over ‘Out-of-Control’ AI Fears.” September 2026. Contemporary coverage of Coxon’s resignation and warnings concerning catastrophic AI risk.
- The Wall Street Journal. “Biggest AI Rivals Agree They Need to Slow It Down.” September 2026. Documents the unusual convergence of Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, Elon Musk and other major AI figures around concerns about the pace and safety of frontier AI development.
- The Wall Street Journal. “Congress Is Suddenly Waking Up to the AI Doomsday Threat.” September 2026. Contemporary account of congressional reaction to the AI-safety warnings and proposals for federal oversight.
- Reuters. “Obama voices caution on AI, urges Democrats to tackle it, NYT says.” September 13, 2026. Reports Obama’s discussion with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries at a private Democratic fundraiser and Obama’s recommendation that AI become a central Democratic agenda if the party regains the House.
Reuters report on Obama, Jeffries and AI - Office of Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries. September 2026 statements and interviews concerning artificial intelligence. Jeffries subsequently publicly agreed with Obama that action on AI was necessary and identified AI as a priority for House Democrats.
- European Union. Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, the Artificial Intelligence Act. Especially Article 2, establishing that aspects of the Act apply to providers outside the EU when systems or general-purpose models are placed on the EU market, and in specified circumstances when AI output is used within the Union.
Official text of the EU AI Act - European Commission. Digital Services Act. Official materials concerning the EU regulatory framework governing online intermediaries and platforms, including services based outside the EU when offered within the European market.
- Engler, Alex. “The EU AI Act will have global impact, but a limited Brussels Effect.” Brookings Institution, June 8, 2022. Useful background on the mechanism by which EU technology regulation can influence products and systems outside Europe even when EU law does not formally govern users in those jurisdictions.
Brookings analysis of the Brussels Effect - Reuters. “Carney says Canada seeks ‘unique alliance’ but not membership with the European Union.” September 13, 2026. Reports discussions of a new Canada-EU relationship and cooperation involving AI, energy, critical minerals and other strategic sectors.
- Reuters. “Canada and EU should ally to protect democracies, Carney says, after ‘associate member’ proposal angers Trump.” September 17, 2026. Reports von der Leyen’s proposal for an unprecedented EU “associate member” relationship with Canada and Carney’s response.
Reuters on the Canada-EU proposal - Reuters. “Highlights from Canadian PM Mark Carney’s speech in Strasbourg.” September 17, 2026. Documents proposed Canada-EU cooperation involving AI, digital trade, defense, energy and strategic infrastructure.
- Reuters. “HIGHLIGHTS – EU Commission chief ‘state of the union’ address.” September 16, 2026. Covers von der Leyen’s associate-member proposal for Canada and her parallel call for international cooperation and a slowdown in AI development.
- Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute. Ronald Reagan quotation archive and July 6, 1987 remarks containing the warning that “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” This is the source for the quotation used in the essay’s conclusion.
- 31. Randolph, Marc. That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea. Little, Brown and Company, 2019.Randolph discusses growing up surrounded by Freud’s writings and portraits, explains that Freud was his father’s great-uncle, and identifies Edward Bernays as his grandmother’s brother. He describes Bernays as the father of modern public relations who applied psychology and psychoanalysis to marketing. The original hardcover was published September 17, 2019.
Publisher page for That Will Never Work - 32. Randolph, Marc. “That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea with Marc Randolph.” Interview with Dr. Patty Ann Tublin, The Trust Doctor Podcast. This is the especially useful source for the essay because Randolph himself explicitly connects Bernays’s work to his own career. After discussing Freud, Randolph calls Edward Bernays the relative “more coincidentally aligned with what my career ended up becoming.” He explains that Bernays recognized that it was possible to change how people think without their necessarily recognizing that they were being changed, then observes that he himself spent his life fundamentally as a marketing person and jokes that the Freud/Bernays connection is almost too coincidental not to involve some “DNA connection.”
Full Marc Randolph interview and transcript - 33. Randolph, Marc. “Marc Randolph: Netflix Co-Founder, Entrepreneur, Mentor & Investor.” Right About Now: Legendary Business Advice. Randolph discusses his twelve years in direct marketing, calls marketing his “first love,” identifies Edward Bernays as his great-uncle and “father of public relations,” and explains how central marketing was to Netflix’s early development.
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Friday Funnies; Diving In
With my opinions…
SEP 18, 2026
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I am off to do horse chores, so have a great day folks!
JGM
September 17, 2026
WISE ADVICE From the American Rifleman
Training
Criminal Clues
Steve Tarani
You don’t have to be the hardest target, but you don’t want to be the softest.
What most people believe about crime is wrong in a way that matters. They believe it is chaotic—that there is no rhyme or reason, that it is driven by impulse, desperation or some unknowable darkness that strikes at random. They hold this belief because it is comforting, because it removes responsibility: If crime is random, then preparation is pointless. If it is chaos, then there are no signals to read, no patterns to interrupt, no leverage points to exploit. But, that belief does not survive contact with reality.
Crime, especially the kind most people are exposed to everyday, is rarely random. It is recognizably patterned, selective and plainly observational. It unfolds less like a lightning strike and more like a silent scan.
Predators are not wandering blindly into situations.
They are surveilling environments, reading people, seeking indicators and making decisions. These decisions are guided by a simple calculation that rarely fails them: Which option offers the highest reward for the lowest effort, risk and resistance? That is the entire decision process.
Stickers, decals and visible personal identifiers can reveal patterns about the [vehicle] owner’s life.
That calculation is constant. It happens in parking lots, on sidewalks, in neighborhoods, in shopping centers and on residential streets at night. It happens quickly, often subconsciously, and it is built on a language of signals, referred to as “soft-target indicators.”
These signals are broadcast through behavior, appearance, environment and routine. And, most people have no idea they are broadcasting anything at all.
This is the quiet crux of the problem. You are communicating constantly, whether you intend to or not. You are telling a story about your awareness, your capability, your predictability and your vulnerability. Your car is telling a story. Your home is telling a story. Your daily patterns are telling a story. And, the people who matter most in this context are the ones who are trained, through repetition and experience, to read those indicators quickly and act on them.
The uncomfortable truth is that many people are advertising themselves as soft targets (easy opportunities) without ever realizing it.
Start with the individual, because that is where most encounters begin. In public spaces, predators are not looking for just any target; they are looking for indicators. These are subtle, often fleeting cues that suggest a person will be easier to approach, easier to control or easier to exploit. It is not about strength in the conventional sense. It is about perception. It is about whether you appear aware, present and capable of reacting.
Keep landscaping minimalist and provide ample lighting to present a less attractive target to would-be home invaders PHOTO: GETTY
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Those flashy indicators of wealth send loud signals to criminals. PHOTO: GETTY
Watch how people move through the world. Many walk with their attention buried in a phone, headphones sealing off their environment, posture collapsed inward. Their pace is irregular. Their awareness is narrow. They are mentally elsewhere. To the predator, this is not just distraction. It is opportunity. It indicates delayed reaction time, reduced situational awareness and a higher likelihood that an approach will succeed before resistance can be mustered.
Contrast that with someone who moves with purpose, head up, scanning naturally without appearing paranoid, aware of who and what is around them. Nothing about that person needs to be aggressive or confrontational. The signal is simply different. It communicates presence. It communicates that this person is not asleep inside their own environment, that they could make things more complicated and are therefore a more difficult (hard) target.
The difference between those two signals is often enough to determine who gets approached and who is bypassed.
Then there is the matter of visible reward. Humans are visual creatures, and predators are no exception. Jewelry, electronics, cash and even subtle indicators of wealth can change the equation instantly. A person displaying high-value items in an environment with limited oversight is increasing the perceived reward side of the equation.
But, reward alone is not enough. Predators are not looking for the highest reward. They are looking for the best ratio of reward to effort and risk. A person with visible valuables who is alert and aware may still be bypassed in favor of someone with less visible wealth, but far lower perceived resistance.
There is also a category of soft-target indicators that is rarely discussed openly, but is widely understood among security professionals. Body language that suggests uncertainty, hesitation or impairment can shift perception dramatically. Someone who appears lost, disoriented or intoxicated is signaling reduced capacity to respond effectively. This does not make them deserving of victimization, but it does make them more likely to be selected by someone who is already looking for an advantage.
Humans are visual creatures, and predators are no exception. Jewelry, electronics, cash and even subtle indicators of wealth can change the equation instantly.
Vehicles extend these indicators in ways most overlook. A car is not just transportation, but also a mobile profile. It tells a story about what might be inside, how attentive the owner is and how difficult access will be.
A vehicle with valuables visible through the windows is not a mystery. It is an invitation. Bags, electronics, tools, cash or even loose change left in plain sight reduce the effort required to decide. The predator does not have to guess whether there is value inside; it is already confirmed. That alone can shift a passing glance into an actionable decision.
Unlocked doors take this further. They remove friction entirely. There is no need for forced entry, no noise, no time investment. The barrier between intent and action disappears. In many cases, predators will simply test door handles as they move through parking areas. They are not targeting a specific person. They are sampling for opportunity. The moment resistance drops to zero, the decision is made for them.
There are also more subtle signals embedded in vehicles that extend beyond immediate access. Stickers, logos, decals and visible personal identifiers can reveal patterns about the owner’s life. They can suggest when someone is likely to be away (like a military spouse), where their children go to school, what interests or affiliations they have, whether a firearm may be present and even what valuables might be stored at home. These are not just expressions of identity; in the wrong context, they become clues in a surveillance profile a predator builds.
Homes and property amplify all of this because they introduce time into the equation. Unlike a passing encounter on the street, a home can be observed, revisited and assessed over multiple days or weeks. Predators do not always act immediately. Many watch, waiting for patterns to emerge.
A house with no visible security measures sends a clear message—a positive indicator. No cameras, no alarm signage and no motion lighting suggests that detection is less likely, that entry may go unnoticed and that the risk side of the equation is low. Even the absence of something can function as a signal.
Lighting plays a critical role here. Darkness creates cover. It allows approach without visibility, reduces the chance of being seen by neighbors and increases predator confidence. A well-lit exterior, especially with motion-activated lights, disrupts that cover. It introduces unpredictability. It forces exposure during approach.
Landscaping is another overlooked factor. Overgrown shrubs, tall hedges, and cluttered yards do more than affect appearance; they create hiding places, provide concealment during approach and time for manipulation of entry points. A clean, open line of sight from the street to the home reduces opportunities.
Accessible tools like shovels, sledgehammers, ladders and even sporting equipment like baseball bats or a tennis racquet can be used to force entry.
Then, there are the signals of absence. Mail piling up, packages left unattended, junk mail stacked, lights that never change timing are not just signs of neglect, but also indicators that no one is home. Predators watching for patterns will notice when a house appears unoccupied during certain hours or days. That predictability becomes part of their decision-making process.
Boutique-store packages and fancy gift bags are enticing signals for anyone of low moral fiber who might glance into an exposed hatchback. Make use of covers and deck lids if a vehicle with a separate trunk isn’t available. PHOTO: GETTY
Entry points often require less effort to open than people assume. Unlocked doors, open windows, poorly secured garages and even pet doors can provide access without force. Each of these reduces the complexity of the task. Complexity—including time—is something predators actively avoid when easier alternatives exist.
Even something as mundane as trash cans become indicators. Boxes from new electronics left at the curb announce what is likely inside the home, removing uncertainty and confirming reward. It tells a story upon which someone may be willing to act.
You are telling a story about your awareness, your capability, your predictability and your vulnerability
What ties all this together is not fear. It is operational planning. The end game is simple. Predators seek the path of least resistance. They are not looking for the hardest target but seeking the easiest one that meets their criteria.
This is where most discussions about safety go wrong. They focus on extreme measures, on fortress-like solutions, on turning a home or a person into something that looks impenetrable. That is not necessary for what we normal earth walkers need. What matters is shifting your position within the environment. You do not need to be the hardest target; you need to not be the softest. That shift can be achieved through small, deliberate changes that alter the signals you are sending.
For individuals, it begins with awareness. Not hypervigilance, not paranoia, but simple presence. Head up. Occasional scanning of the environment. Awareness of who is near you and what is happening around you. This alone changes how you are perceived. It does not eliminate risk, but it reduces the likelihood of being selected.
Managing visible valuables is equally straightforward. What is not seen cannot factor into the predator’s initial calculation. Keeping items out of sight removes one of the primary drivers of opportunistic decisions.
When it comes to vehicles, the same principle applies. Locking doors is not just a habit. It is a barrier. It introduces effort where none would otherwise exist. Removing valuables from sight or taking them with you eliminates immediate reward. Even something as simple as parking in well-lit areas can shift the equation. None of this is rocket surgery.
Packages piling up are not just an invitation to “porch pirates,” but also are indicators the home is currently unoccupied and therefore a soft target PHOTO: GETTY
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At the home level, the goal is not to create an impenetrable fortress. It is to introduce uncertainty and increase perceived risk. Visible cameras, even basic ones, suggest that actions may be recorded. Alarm signage, whether or not a system is present, can act as a deterrent by introducing doubt. Motionactivated lighting removes darkness as a cover and creates exposure at critical moments.
Maintaining the exterior of the property matters more than most people realize. Trimmed landscaping, clear lines of sight, the absence of tools and sporting gear all contribute to the perception that the space is monitored and maintained. Timers on lights or devices can create the appearance of occupancy even when no one is home, disrupting patterns that might otherwise be exploited.
There is also a broader layer that extends beyond the individual property. Communities where neighbors are aware of each other’s patterns and notice anomalies, create an environment where predators face increased uncertainty. The presence of multiple observers, even informal ones, raises the perceived risk across an entire area.
None of this guarantees safety, as there are no guarantees in life (other than the proverbial death and taxes), but it changes the landscape in a way that matters. It shifts the balance of the equation. It makes your environment less attractive compared with others.
The core idea is not complicated, but it is often ignored. You are part of a system of signals. You are constantly communicating information about yourself, your habits and your environment. Predators read those indicators, whether you realize it or not. The question is not whether signals exist—they do. The question is whether you are aware of them and whether you are willing to adjust them.
Predators do not need a perfect target; they need an easier one. And when you understand that, when you see how small changes alter perception and shift decision-making, you begin to move out of the category of convenience to that of effort. And effort, in this context, is often more than enough to make a predator read their criminal clues and ask themselves, “Are there softer targets?”
September 16, 2026
Well Being: The Critical Mineral Most Americans are Deficient in
Magnesium: New research suggests its role is critical for health
| DR. ROBERT W. MALONE SEP 16 | |
Audio Version:
More than two-thirds of American adults do not have enough magnesium.
A 2026 analysis of U.S. adults participating in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found that 67.8 percent had serum magnesium concentrations below 2.06 mg/dL, the threshold the researchers used for chronic latent magnesium deficiency. That number is remarkable, particularly because serum magnesium may actually be a relatively insensitive way of detecting inadequate magnesium stores.
Magnesium deficiency is generally assessed by measuring magnesium in the blood, yet less than one percent of the body’s magnesium is found in serum. Most magnesium is stored in bone and within cells. The body also regulates circulating magnesium rather tightly, meaning that serum concentrations do not necessarily provide a complete picture of magnesium stores. A normal blood test does not necessarily mean that the body’s magnesium stores are adequate.
There is an important issue concerning how we define deficiency. The researchers used a higher serum magnesium cutoff than is conventionally used to diagnose clinical hypomagnesemia. Their threshold of 2.06 mg/dL has been proposed as a better marker for chronic latent magnesium deficiency, based in part on studies showing physiological changes and increased health risks at magnesium concentrations that conventional laboratory ranges may still classify as normal. In other words, by the time someone crosses the conventional threshold for frank hypomagnesemia, we may be looking at the far end of the problem rather than its beginning.
There is even more reason to take the finding seriously. We already know from dietary surveys that Americans aren’t consuming enough magnesium. Analysis of NHANES dietary data found that 48 percent of Americans consumed less magnesium from food and beverages than their Estimated Average Requirement.
These are two different measurements asking two different questions, but they point in the same direction. One finds widespread inadequate dietary intake. The other suggests that suboptimal magnesium status may be even more common.
Why should we care?
Because magnesium isn’t a minor nutritional accessory. It is involved in hundreds of enzymatic reactions and some of the most fundamental processes keeping us alive. Magnesium is required for the production and utilization of ATP, the energy currency of the cell. It plays essential roles in protein synthesis, DNA and RNA metabolism, glucose regulation, muscle and nerve function, vascular tone, cardiac electrical stability and bone metabolism. In the brain, magnesium helps regulate neuronal signaling and synaptic plasticity, processes fundamental to learning, memory and cognitive function.
Low magnesium status has been associated with cognitive impairment and dementia, while experimental studies have shown that increasing magnesium concentrations in the brain can enhance synaptic plasticity and improve learning and memory. Much of the early work involved magnesium-L-threonate, a form developed specifically to increase magnesium availability in the brain. The evidence has now progressed beyond animal studies.
Randomized, placebo-controlled human trials have reported improvements in several measures of cognition and memory, including working and episodic memory, following magnesium-L-threonate supplementation. What has not yet been established is whether these cognitive effects translate into prevention or treatment of Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias.
Human studies also suggest that magnesium status differs in people with Alzheimer’s disease. A meta-analysis of 21 studies found significantly lower serum and plasma magnesium in Alzheimer’s patients than in healthy controls. Perhaps more interestingly, postmortem studies of human brains have reported lower magnesium concentrations in Alzheimer’s-affected regions, including the hippocampal region, entorhinal cortex, and frontal cortex. These findings do not prove that magnesium deficiency causes Alzheimer’s disease. Neurodegeneration itself could alter magnesium metabolism. But prospective evidence makes the relationship harder to dismiss: in the Rotterdam Study of 9,569 initially dementia-free adults, low serum magnesium was associated with a 32 percent greater subsequent risk of dementia.
Which raises an obvious question.
Why are so many Americans apparently running short of a mineral this fundamental to human biology?
There isn’t one answer. The medical system likes to point out that medications, gastrointestinal disease, diabetes, alcohol use, kidney loss, and aging can all affect magnesium status.
But there is another explanation sitting directly in front of us.
The food industry removed much of the magnesium from our food.
Big Ag removed much of the magnesium from food
When we wrote Homesteading for Health, we spent considerable time examining something largely missing from modern discussions about nutrition. Food isn’t simply protein, carbohydrate, and fat.
Food contains minerals.
And the nutritional composition of our food is not fixed.
The nutritional quality of our food has changed. Evidence accumulated over decades shows that modern high-yield agriculture can produce more food per acre while reducing the concentration of minerals in that food. Historical USDA comparisons found substantial declines in several nutrients in fruits and vegetables between 1950 and 1999. Long-running agricultural experiments provide even stronger evidence. The Broadbalk Wheat Experiment in England, which has been continuously cultivated and studied since 1843, has documented significant declines in magnesium, zinc, iron, and copper concentrations in wheat grain associated with modern high-yield varieties. As crop yields increased, mineral concentrations often fell, a phenomenon researchers call the dilution effect.
But yield is only part of the story. Plants do not simply vacuum minerals out of dirt. Healthy soil is a living biological system in which bacteria, fungi, and plant roots work together to make minerals available to the plant. Modern tillage, heavy fertilizer use and other intensive practices disrupt those relationships, particularly the mycorrhizal fungal networks that extend the effective reach of plant roots. A soil may therefore contain magnesium and other minerals on a laboratory assay while becoming less biologically effective at delivering them into the crop.
What matters isn’t simply whether magnesium exists in the dirt. What matters is whether it makes its way from the soil into the food and ultimately into us.
Then we take the food we produce and process even more magnesium out of it.
We know exactly where much of it went.
Industrial milling removed it from our food
Again, in Homesteading for Health, we document that much of the issue stems from the production of processed flour. The wheat kernel consists of the bran, germ, and endosperm. The bran and germ contain a disproportionate share of the grain’s minerals, including magnesium. Making refined white flour removes those portions of the kernel.
The result can be a dramatic reduction in magnesium.
And then comes one of the stranger ironies of our modern food system.
We call the resulting product “enriched flour.”
Iron and selected B vitamins are added back after milling, and folic acid is added to most enriched grain products.
Magnesium generally isn’t.
We take a naturally magnesium-containing food, remove much of its magnesium, replace a selected handful of the nutrients lost during processing, and call the finished product enriched.
Then we make refined flour a foundation of the American diet.
Perhaps the magnesium problem isn’t quite so mysterious after all.
Where Did the Magnesium Go?
The best natural sources of magnesium aren’t particularly exotic.
Pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, almonds and other nuts, beans, lentils, whole grains and dark leafy vegetables are all good sources. Magnesium is, after all, at the center of the chlorophyll molecule. Green plants are therefore an obvious place to find it.
The modern American diet has moved in almost exactly the opposite direction.
Whole grains became refined grains. Beans and legumes became less central to many meals. Nuts and seeds became optional snacks rather than routine foods. Fresh vegetables increasingly compete with highly processed products made primarily from refined flour, starch, sugar, and industrial oils.
The result is an interesting nutritional paradox.
Americans can consume more than enough calories while remaining poorly supplied with micronutrients.
We can be overfed and undernourished at the same time.
Then There Is the Brain
For years, magnesium was discussed primarily in relation to muscle function, bone, cardiovascular health, and metabolism. Its role in cognition received considerably less public attention.
That has changed.
Magnesium is involved in neuronal signaling and synaptic plasticity, the process through which connections between neurons change in response to experience. These mechanisms are fundamental to learning and memory.
Animal experiments produced some striking early findings. Increasing brain magnesium concentrations improved measures of synaptic plasticity, learning, and memory, and experimental work with magnesium-L-threonate generated particular interest because this compound was developed to increase magnesium availability in the brain.
There are also observational human data connecting magnesium status with cognitive health and dementia. A 2024 systematic review examined three randomized controlled trials and 12 cohort studies. The cohort evidence suggested relationships between magnesium status and cognitive outcomes. Interestingly, the researchers also found a U-shaped association between serum magnesium and dementia or cognitive impairment, with approximately 0.85 mmol/L appearing to represent an optimal concentration in the available cohort data.
That last observation is important.
More is not always better.
The objective isn’t to consume enormous amounts of magnesium. It is to have enough.
Magnesium-L-Threonate and Memory
This brings me to the form of magnesium that I find particularly interesting: magnesium-L-threonate, commonly abbreviated MgT.
Magnesium-L-threonate was developed specifically to increase magnesium concentrations in the central nervous system. Early animal experiments reported improvements in learning, working memory, and both short- and long-term memory.
The evidence has now moved into humans.
A recently published randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial enrolled 100 adults aged 18 to 45. Participants received either 2 grams per day of magnesium-L-threonate or placebo for six weeks.
Compared with placebo, the magnesium-L-threonate group demonstrated greater improvement in the NIH Total Cognition Composite, with particularly notable effects involving working and episodic memory. Reaction time also improved. Not every endpoint improved, including several objective measures of sleep, but the study provides controlled human evidence supporting some of what the earlier animal studies had found.
This is the form of magnesium I personally favor when cognition and brain health are among the objectives.
Your Heart Needs Magnesium
Magnesium is also deeply involved in cardiovascular physiology.
It influences vascular smooth-muscle tone, movement of calcium and potassium across cell membranes, and the electrical activity of the heart. Severe magnesium deficiency can produce abnormal heart rhythms. Magnesium is important enough to cardiac electrophysiology that intravenous magnesium has long-standing medical uses for certain arrhythmias and other acute clinical settings.
But the more interesting question for most of us concerns the effects of chronic, less severe magnesium inadequacy.
A meta-analysis of 38 randomized trials involving 2,709 participants found an average reduction of 2.8 points in the upper (systolic) blood pressure number and 2.1 points in the lower (diastolic) number compared with placebo. In practical terms, a reading of 130/80 would decline, on average, to about 127/78.
Magnesium supplementation appears to lower blood pressure most in people who actually have high blood pressure, particularly those already being treated for hypertension. A 2025 meta-analysis of 38 randomized controlled trials involving 2,709 participants found that among people with hypertension who were already taking blood-pressure medication, magnesium supplementation lowered the upper blood-pressure number by an average of 7.7 points and the lower number by about 3 points compared with placebo. People who were magnesium deficient also experienced larger reductions, while those with normal blood pressure did not experience a statistically significant reduction.
Magnesium is also closely connected to glucose metabolism and insulin signaling. In a pooled analysis of 24 randomized trials involving people with type 2 diabetes, magnesium supplementation was associated with reductions in fasting glucose, HbA1c, and blood pressure.
Magnesium isn’t a miracle cure.
It is something more mundane and perhaps more important: a basic nutrient necessary for the metabolic systems we are asking our bodies to operate every day.
How Much Magnesium Do We Actually Need?
The recommended dietary allowance varies by age and sex. For most adult men, it is approximately 400–420 mg per day, while most adult women require approximately 310–320 mg per day, with somewhat higher requirements during pregnancy.
Those numbers aren’t particularly difficult to reach if someone eats a nutrient-dense whole-food diet.
That “if” is doing a lot of work.
The NIH identifies legumes, nuts, seeds, whole grains, and green leafy vegetables as major dietary sources.
That list looks remarkably similar to the foods that have been displaced by the modern processed diet.
Food First. But Perhaps Not Food Alone.
Magnesium-rich foods should be the foundation. Eat green vegetables. Eat beans and legumes. Eat nuts and seeds. Choose whole grains rather than refined flour. Grow some of your own food if you can. Buy food from farmers who care about their soil. Reduce the amount of highly processed food in your diet.
But there is a problem with stopping the discussion there.
The food isn’t the only thing that changes as we get older. We change too.
Aging alters the gastrointestinal tract and can reduce how efficiently some nutrients are absorbed. Older people may also eat less food, have less varied diets, take medications that interfere with magnesium balance, or develop diseases that increase magnesium losses. Kidney handling of magnesium also changes with age. Proton-pump inhibitors are a particularly important example because long-term use can cause hypomagnesemia in susceptible individuals. Diuretics and several other medications can also alter magnesium status.
This means that the person who was able to maintain adequate magnesium status at 35 may not necessarily do so at 65 or 75 while eating essentially the same diet.
That matters because aging is precisely when many of the biological systems that depend upon magnesium become increasingly important: cardiovascular function, glucose regulation, bone health, muscle function and cognition.
So I don’t think “food first” should automatically mean “food only.”
For many adults, particularly as we age, magnesium supplementation is worth considering alongside a magnesium-rich diet.
The form matters. Magnesium oxide is inexpensive and contains a lot of elemental magnesium, but it is poorly absorbed and commonly causes gastrointestinal effects. Magnesium citrate is better absorbed and useful for people who also benefit from its laxative effect, but for others loose stool isn’t particularly desirable. Magnesium glycinate is widely used and generally well tolerated. Magnesium-L-threonate is considerably more expensive, but is particularly interesting because it was developed to increase magnesium availability in the brain and now has both animal and human evidence concerning cognition.
This is why magnesium-L-threonate is the form I personally favor when brain and cognitive health are part of the objective.
But supplementation shouldn’t become another exercise in the American belief that if some is good, more must be better. The NIH establishes a 350 mg/day upper limit for magnesium from supplements and medications in adults. Importantly, that limit does not include magnesium naturally present in food. It was established primarily because supplemental magnesium can cause diarrhea, nausea, and abdominal cramping. Much higher intakes can become dangerous, especially in people with impaired kidney function, because the kidneys normally eliminate excess magnesium. Magnesium supplements can also interact with several medications.
The objective is adequacy, not excess.
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We Keep Rediscovering What Food Used to Provide
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about magnesium is how unremarkable it really is.
It isn’t a newly discovered molecule. It isn’t a pharmaceutical invention. Human beings have required magnesium throughout our evolutionary history.
What changed wasn’t our need for it.
What changed was our food, and as we age, our ability to extract and retain nutrients from that food changes as well.
Modern agriculture bred crops for yield. Industrial food processing refined grains for texture, appearance, and shelf life, stripping the magnesium-rich germ and bran from wheat in the process. The result is an enormous processed-food industry capable of delivering abundant calories while removing many of the micronutrients that once accompanied those calories.
Then we got older.
We ate less. Our gastrointestinal physiology changed. Some of us developed diabetes or gastrointestinal disease. Many began taking medications that affect magnesium absorption or excretion. Yet our physiological requirement for magnesium didn’t disappear.
Nearly half of Americans now consume less magnesium from food than their estimated requirement. A new analysis suggests that more than two-thirds may have serum magnesium concentrations below a proposed threshold for adequate status.
Start with food. Eat the foods in which magnesium naturally occurs. Stop stripping those foods of their nutrients whenever possible.
But particularly as we age, it is also reasonable to consider magnesium supplementation rather than simply assuming that a modern diet will provide everything we need.
We spend enormous amounts of money looking for complicated ways to remain healthy as we age.
Sometimes the answer may begin with something considerably simpler.
Make sure the basic machinery has what it needs to run.
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By: JGM/RWM
September 15, 2026
Fauci Took the Fifth One Hundred Eleven Times
Peter Navarro has the diary that explains why, and a federal prison number of his own. A review of “Why Fauci MUST Rot in Prison”.
| DR. ROBERT W. MALONE SEP 15 | |
MALONE.NEWS
Fauci Took the Fifth One Hundred Eleven Times
Peter Navarro has the diary that explains why, and a federal prison number of his own. A review of Why Fauci MUST Rot in Prison.
Book Review by Robert W. Malone, MD, MS
On July 29, 2026, Anthony Stephen Fauci sat down at a witness table under subpoena. He invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination one hundred eleven times.
A man who spent forty years explaining himself to the American public, in more television appearances than anyone can count, declined to explain himself under oath. Days earlier, Senator Rand Paul had released 1,141 pages of Fauci’s private diary to the world. Something in those pages made silence the better option.
Peter Navarro has read all 1,141 pages. He has also read the earlier volume, the one Fauci emailed to himself from a government server on July 11, 2015, covering the anthrax letters, the smallpox scare, the bird-flu wars, and Ebola. Why Fauci MUST Rot in Prison is what he found.
I should tell you at the outset that I am not a neutral reader of this book. Navarro asked me to review the manuscript before publication, specifically the sections concerning me and the sections concerning Dr. Vladimir “Zev” Zelenko. I went at those sections the way I would go at a paper I had been asked to referee. I will come back to what happened when I did.
The two diaries
The book rests on a simple premise. Anthony Fauci wrote down what he actually thought. Then he went on television and said something else.
Navarro calls the older volume the Fauci Prequel Diary and the pandemic volume the Fauci Diary. He cites the second by date throughout. The provenance is unusual. Fauci did not release these pages, and no subpoena produced them. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who had written The Real Anthony Fauci before becoming Secretary of Health and Human Services, took over the filing cabinets when he took over the department. By Kennedy’s account, his team spent eight months pulling the diary out of eleven separate government servers where it had been, in his phrase, sequestered and secreted.
Books built on leaked documents usually have a credibility problem, and it usually shows up in how the author handles the parts that do not help him. Navarro handles this in an Author’s Note at the back titled “The Record and Its Limits,” and that note is the reason I can recommend this book to people who will be looking for a reason to dismiss it.
He sets out three rules. He quotes the diaries exactly as typed, misspellings and exclamation points intact, on the principle that you do not clean up a record in a book about the reliability of records. Where Fauci pasted a news article into an entry, Navarro labels it pasted press, a reporter’s account Fauci chose to keep rather than Fauci’s own testimony. And he states the record’s limits before his critics can: the pandemic release is incomplete, with gaps of months and a further installment referenced but absent, and parts of the earlier volume were written retrospectively, by Fauci’s own admission. Where Fauci’s dates are wrong, Navarro says so on the page instead of fixing them quietly.
Most polemics do not do this. This one does it in a section the casual reader will never reach.
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The chapter I would hand to a medical student
Chapter Eighteen is called “The Country Doctor.” It is about Zev Zelenko, and it is the chapter I would put in front of anyone still trying to understand what went wrong.
Zelenko practiced in New York’s Hudson Valley, caring for the heavily Orthodox community around Kiryas Joel for close to two decades. When COVID moved through that dense housing in March 2020, he did not send high-risk patients home to wait until they were sick enough for a hospital bed. He treated them in the first days, with hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and azithromycin. His peer-reviewed series examined 141 laboratory-confirmed outpatients treated a median of four days after symptom onset (Derwand, Scholz, and Zelenko 2020).
What Navarro does with this chapter is the part I did not expect. He follows the paper trail up. Zelenko made a YouTube video appealing to the President on March 21, 2020. Mark Meadows called him the next day. Stephen Hahn, the FDA Commissioner, called the following week and routed him to Dr. Patricia Brennan, the Director of the National Library of Medicine. Brennan asked for his data. She got it. About a week later she told him the National Institutes of Health was not equipped to process real-world evidence, and referred him to a preprint server.
Navarro’s conclusion is sharper than the one his readers expect. Nobody suppressed Zelenko’s data. It was routed. Suppression requires a person to decide something. Routing requires nobody to decide anything at all.
This is where I have a professional stake, so I will state it plainly. Randomized controlled trials are the right instrument in many settings and an impractical one in others. In battlefield medicine, in austere field conditions, and in the opening weeks of a novel outbreak, the trial you want does not exist and the patient in front of you does not wait. Case reports, case series, and reports of direct clinical experience are evidence. They are weaker evidence than a well-powered trial, and they are not nothing. A public-health apparatus that has no mechanism for reading what a physician observed in his own patients has not built a higher standard. It has built a wall.
Zelenko died in 2022. He did not live to see this chapter written about him.
Where I come into it
In August 2021, Navarro and I published the first of three essays in the Washington Times arguing against universal vaccination and for individualized risk assessment. Facebook censored it. We opened the next essay by reporting that fact. The third essay, in January 2022, was the sharpest of the three, and it included a warning about myocarditis in young men.
Navarro uses that trilogy as a spine through the vaccine chapters, because the essays are dated and public and can be checked against what was known when we wrote them. That is the right use of them. The value of a contemporaneous document is that it cannot be revised after the fact, which is the same reason Fauci’s diary is the most dangerous exhibit in this book.
Now the disclosure I owe you. When Navarro sent me the manuscript, I checked the studies, the dates, and the regulatory record in the sections he asked me to review. I found real errors. One passage asserted a presidential executive order on hydroxychloroquine that does not exist. Another overstated the mortality finding in Zelenko’s own published study, which reported a strong signal on hospitalization and a mortality difference that did not reach statistical significance. A third described the March 2020 emergency use authorization in a way that implied outpatient prescribing had been made unlawful, which it had not.
Navarro fixed every one of them. The published text states the hospitalization finding and stops there. It describes the authorization accurately and makes the stronger argument available to him, which is that the government never had to ban the drug to stop physicians from prescribing it.
An author who takes that kind of correction from an outside reviewer, on material that weakens his own punch lines, is an author who wants to be right more than he wants to be loud. That is not the reputation Peter Navarro has. It is the reputation he has earned on this book.
The interludes
Five sections in this book are not about Fauci at all. Navarro calls them Crime and Punishment, numbers them I through V, and drops them between the parts. They are about the men he met in federal prison.
There is the young Puerto Rican bunkmate who built a paragliding tourism business, then picked up work in the drug trade, and is now five years into fifteen with three children in San Juan. Navarro does not use him for sentiment. He uses him to ask who actually chose the sentence. The prosecutor chose the charges knowing what they added up to. The jury found facts without being told what the facts carried. The judge, the one person the Constitution dresses in a robe and sets apart to judge, chose least of all.
These interludes are the most unusual thing in the book and the reason it is more than a polemic. A man who served four months in a federal facility is writing a book demanding prison for another man. He knows exactly what he is asking for. He describes the sixty-two-degree nights and the fork-comb economics of the place he is asking a court to send Anthony Fauci. He declines to go soft on crime while he is inside the fence, and he declines to pretend the machine that put him there is a just one.
The epilogue asks the question those interludes have been building toward. One man in this story has two misdemeanor convictions, a Bureau of Prisons number, and an appeal pending. The other has never been charged, holds a presidential pardon, and sleeps at home. Navarro asks which one is free.
The prosecution
The last part of the book stops arguing and starts filing.
Chapter Thirty-Five is titled “Venue Is Destiny,” and it turns on a single observation. The pardon Fauci accepted reaches offenses against the United States. It does not reach Florida. Navarro learned the lesson about venue in a District of Columbia courtroom, and he applies it here without pretending his motives are disinterested.
Chapter Thirty-Six is a charging memorandum. Chapter Thirty-Seven is a sentencing memorandum, and it does something I have not seen in a book of this kind. Navarro weighs the stacked statutory maximums against the seven hundred years the press tallied across the four indictments filed against Donald Trump. He runs the process and racketeering counts past one hundred thirty years before a single death enters the calculation.
Then he restrains himself, and the restraint is the tell. Homicide is charged one proved victim at a time, he writes: a named Floridian, dead of that virus, with a medical examiner’s causation and a culpable act behind it. Do not multiply by a county, or a state, or a nation. Count the graves the proof can carry. Florida buried its elderly by the tens of thousands, and Navarro says outright that the proof will not carry them all.
A writer working purely in the red-meat register does not add that paragraph. It costs him the biggest number on the page.
What I would flag
The title will cost this book readers who would have been persuaded by its contents. That is a deliberate choice by the author and his publisher, and it is not my choice to make. But the people most in need of the Author’s Note and Chapter Eighteen are precisely the people who will not pick up a book called Why Fauci MUST Rot in Prison.
The prosecutorial frame is also a commitment. Navarro has written the indictment he believes the record supports. Whether any Florida state attorney files it is a separate question, and the book cannot answer it. Readers should hold the legal argument and the political prediction apart.
And the register is the War Room register. The nicknames run throughout: Playing God Tony, Cover-Up Tony, Lockdown Tony, Myocarditis Tony. Some readers will find that this keeps thirty-seven chapters moving. Others will find it grates against the documentary discipline the book shows elsewhere. Both reactions are fair.
Whom this book is for
If you lost a parent in a nursing home in 2020 and were told it was nobody’s fault, buy this book.
If you are a physician who watched a treatment decision get made by a press conference rather than by a chart, buy this book.
If you are a young man who developed chest pain after a second dose, or the mother of one, buy this book and read Chapter Twenty-Four.
If you are a lawyer who wants to know whether a prosecutable case actually exists under Florida law rather than on cable television, the last four chapters are the reason to buy it.
If you are looking for a careful scientific treatment of gain-of-function methodology, the immunology of the mRNA platform, or the regulatory history that produced the emergency use authorizations, this is not that book. That work belongs to others, and some of it is still being written.
The verdict
Why Fauci MUST Rot in Prison publishes on October 13, 2026, from War Room Books and Skyhorse. You can pre-order it here: https://www.amazon.com/Why-Fauci-MUST-Rot-Prison/dp/1648213022.
The strongest thing I can say about it is the thing I learned by trying to break it. I went looking for the errors that would let Fauci’s defenders throw out the whole volume. I found three, I reported them, and Navarro corrected all three before the book went to press. What is left is dated, sourced, and quoted from the record rather than characterized.
On July 29, 2026, Anthony Fauci had the opportunity to explain those 1,141 pages under oath. He declined, one hundred eleven times. Peter Navarro has spent 240 pages explaining them instead.
Read them, and reach your own verdict. That is what the subtitle asks of you, and it is the right thing to ask.
.
Peter Navarro, Why Fauci MUST Rot in Prison: His Diary. My Diary. Your Verdict. Foreword by Stephen K. Bannon. War Room Books / Skyhorse Publishing, October 13, 2026. 240 pages, hardcover. Print ISBN 978-1-64821-302-1. Ebook ISBN 978-1-64821-303-8.
Disclosure: Peter Navarro is my co-author on three 2021 and 2022 Washington Times essays. He asked me to review portions of this manuscript before publication and to supply a cover endorsement. I appear in the book. I received no payment for the editing, review, or for this notice.
Malone News is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
References
Derwand, Roland, Martin Scholz, and Vladimir Zelenko. 2020. “COVID-19 Outpatients: Early Risk-Stratified Treatment with Zinc Plus Low-Dose Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin: A Retrospective Case Series Study.” International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents 56 (6): 106214.
Navarro, Peter. 2026. Why Fauci MUST Rot in Prison: His Diary. My Diary. Your Verdict. New York: War Room Books / Skyhorse Publishing.
Robert W. Malone worked as a carpenter and a farmhand before he was a physician and a scientist. He did the original discovery research on in vivo mRNA delivery and wrote the first patent disclosures for using mRNA as a drug including for vaccination purposes. He farms in Madison County, Virginia, and writes at malone.news with Jill Glasspool Malone, PhD.
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