The pandemic has triggered an explosion of “temporary” government programs. The economist Robert Higgs sees little evidence that governments ever relinquish such newly added scale and power. Writing in City Journal, Robert Tierney argues that politicians and hysterical media have created a “crisis of crises.” We need to be wary, he warns, of political leaders who exploit our fears.
Toppling a Communist Empire for $2.7 Million
Though widely thought of as focused on waterboarding terrorists or poisoning foreign potentates, it was by smuggling paper that the CIA achieved its most monumental triumph. R.M. Gerecht in a book review for The Washington Free Beacon charts how the late Cold War-era operation to flood Poland with Western books, magazines, printing supplies and audio recordings fatally weakened the country’s Communist dictatorship, setting the stage for the downfall of the entire Soviet empire. Total cost: US$2.7 million.
