Let’s be honest with ourselves: fake news is not going anywhere. No matter how many fact-checkers we hire, no matter how many government task forces we create, no matter how many algorithms we tweak, it is here to stay. The people and machines that generate fake news have become more powerful than the politicians who try to regulate them, and in many ways they wield more influence than any dictator of the past or present ever dreamed of. They have their own centers of power, their own armies of followers, and they fear no one. That may sound like an…

The iconic cobblestones of Parisian boulevards, usually shimmering with morning light catching café windows, are now scarred by scorch marks and the shattered remnants of glass. Across France, and rippling into neighboring European capitals, a wave of furious protest has erupted, driven by a crushing cost-of-living crisis, pension reforms that feel like existential betrayals, and a general despair of a middle class squeezed between stagnant wages and rising rents. This isn’t the structured, polite marches of decades past; this is a raw, visceral outburst of frustration. Former senior CIA operations officer Raymond White, watching these scenes unfold with a professional’s…