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September 11 20th anniversary

Columnists

KNAPP: Happy 20th anniversary. Guess what your gift is?

Twenty years after the 9/11 attacks, the US government is finally — well, probably, kinda sorta — ending its lost war with Afghanistan, drawing down its presence in Iraq, and reducing the heat of its “global war on terror” from a rolling boil to hot-tub temperature. That's good news, right? After two decades of getting groped at airports, searched and surveilled without a warrant or even probable cause, and paying through the nose to finance the murders of hundreds of […]

todaySeptember 11, 2021 69

draft registration Thomas Knapp

Columnists

KNAPP: Don’t expand draft registration – end it

In a rare moment of moral clarity, US Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) points out that “America’s daughters shouldn’t be drafted against their will.” As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, the usually bellicose Cotton voted against advancing the upcoming National Defense Authorization Act after committee chair Jack Reed (D-Rhode Island) added an amendment requiring women between the ages of 18 and 25 to register with the Selective Service System. It’s good to see Cotton on the right side […]

todayJuly 31, 2021 59

government social media

Columnists

KNAPP: It’s time to take away government’s social media privileges

“Modern technology companies have enabled misinformation to poison our information environment with little accountability to their users, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said at a White House press briefing on July 15. “They’ve allowed people who intentionally spread misinformation — what we call ‘disinformation’ — to have extraordinary reach.” In follow-up questions, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki revealed that the Biden administration is “flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation. … Facebook needs to move more quickly to […]

todayJuly 22, 2021 63

gun control

Columnists

KNAPP: Why I’m still not worried about Biden’s “gun control” proposals

In a column last November, I dismissed worries that the incoming Biden/Harris administration would — or, rather, could — successfully implement a more aggressive victim disarmament (English for the euphemism “gun control”) agenda than previous administrations. On Valentine’s Day, Biden cynically exploited the third anniversary of a school shooting in Parkland, Florida, asking Congress to pass laws making it even more difficult for people like the 14 unarmed students and three unarmed educators who were murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas […]

todayFebruary 15, 2021 52

Political unity

Columnists

KNAPP: Political “unity” is neither necessary nor desirable

“[T]o restore the soul and to secure the future of America,” President Joe Biden said in his inaugural speech, “requires more than words. It requires that most elusive of things in a democracy: Unity. … This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge, and unity is the path forward.” The good and bad news about "unity" The bad news:  Where politics is concerned, “unity” is a pipe dream. The good news: Where human flourishing is concerned, the ersatz “unity” […]

todayJanuary 23, 2021 70

Columnists

KNAPP: Why not take Congressional proxy voting all the way?

The Hill reports that US House Republicans, who made a show earlier this year of opposing remote and proxy voting in Congress, are warming to the latter practice. US Representative Paul Mitchell (R-MI) gave his proxy to US Representative Abigail Spanberger (D-VA)  in early December, declaring by tweet that “I will not risk my family’s health in order to vote on key items.” Fast-food cooks and grocery store cashiers don’t get to assign their work to proxies. They show up […]

todayDecember 30, 2020 68

Columnists

KNAPP: Biden wants welfare for the wealthy? What else is new?

In Joe Biden’s “Emergency Action Plan to Save the Economy,” the president-elect proposes to “[f]orgive a minimum of $10,000 per person of federal student loans.” Wait, some protest. That would be a subsidy for the more well-off, at the expense of the less well-off. They have a point. “[D]ebt relief overall, the New York Times notices, “would disproportionately benefit middle- to upper-class college graduates … especially those who attended elite and expensive institutions, and people with lucrative professional credentials like law […]

todayDecember 17, 2020 67

Columnists

KNAPP: I’m so sick of superlatives in 2020

“2020: The Worst Year Ever,” reads the cover of Time magazine’s December 14 issue. “There have been worse years in U.S. history,” admits author Stephanie Zacharek, but not, to her way of thinking, since World War Two. Between a heavy hurricane and fire season, police violence and the accompanying protests, a circus of a presidential election, and a global pandemic, Zacharek opines, none but the oldest among us can remember a year nearly as bad. Just how bad a given year […]

todayDecember 15, 2020 78

Columnists

KNAPP: There’s no such thing as a “must-pass” bill

“Congress,” The Hill reports, “is barreling toward a veto showdown with President Trump over the mammoth must-pass annual defense policy bill.” At issue: The annual National Defense Authorization Act, which as usual has little to do with actual defense. NDAA bill to fuel more corporate welfare into the military-industrial complex Trump says he’ll veto the NDAA if it requires military bases named after Confederate generals to be re-named, as Congress desires. He also says he’ll veto the bill if it doesn’t […]

todayDecember 10, 2020 65

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