They're Not Really Out to Get You
By EDWARD JAY EPSTEIN
Dec. 18, 2015, Wall Street Journal
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Conspiracy, a word derived from the Latin "to breathe together," has been a salient part of the darker
side of recorded history ever since some 60 conspirators in the Roman senate, including Brutus and
Cassius, plotted together to assassinate Julius Caesar in 44 B.C. Nowadays the "C" word does not always
sit well with journalists, who commonly employ it in conjunction with "theory" to describe paranoid
Source: House Oversight Committee release, November 2025