Author: Thomas L. Knapp

What Did Republicans Expect?

Source: The Contrarian
by Jennifer Rubin

“Republicans made a calculated bet that by indulging Donald Trump’s ill-conceived and cruel schemes (e.g., unleashing ICE on cities, tariffs, wars with Venezuela and Iran, slashing healthcare to pay for tax cuts for the rich), the country would somehow stumble through. They figured congressional Republicans would share in any successes but somehow avoid any blame when things (inevitably) went haywire. Politics rarely works out that way.” (03/25/26)

https://www.contrariannews.org/p/what-did-republicans-expect

Thomas L. Knapp

Half the Answer, episode 74

Source: Liberal Currents

“What’s happened in New York City since Zohran Mamdani became mayor in January? Has it become a Marxist-Islamic bastion, ruled by a soviet in the succeeding three months? Trent and Caitlin discuss the Sharia Socialism of NYC Mayor Mamdani, plus the naked vice signaling and stove-touching of the GOP, with author Ryan Cooper.” (03/25/26)

https://www.liberalcurrents.com/sharia-socialism-in-nyc-or-just-smarter-governance-half-the-answer-74-with-ryan-cooper/

Thomas L. Knapp

The Durable Appeal of Doom

Source: Mindset Shifts
by Barry Brownstein

“The hateful logic of the Nazis is find your villain and assign all blame to them, then the complexity of the world collapses into a satisfying and murderous solution. Nazis logic did not die with the Third Reich. Paul Ehrlich passed away earlier this month, at 93, and his passing is an occasion to examine another expression of the same underlying habit of mind. Ehrlich was not an antisemite. His villain was humanity itself. … What makes Ehrlich’s life so instructive is not that he was wrong — he was wrong in ways almost beyond reckoning — but that his wrongness was so elaborately rewarded.” (03/25/26)

https://mindsetshifts.substack.com/p/the-durable-appeal-of-doom

Thomas L. Knapp

WI: Man who ordered ballots without consent found guilty of fraud and identity theft

Source: San Diego Union-Tribune

“A jury convicted a Wisconsin man of election fraud and identity theft for requesting the ballots of Republican state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Democratic Racine Mayor Cory Mason without their consent. Jurors in Racine County on Tuesday found Harry Wait guilty of two misdemeanor election fraud charges and one felony identity theft charge following a two-day trial. He was acquitted of a second count of identity theft. Wait leads a group that makes false election claims, including that Wisconsin’s elections are riddled with fraud and that President Donald Trump won the 2020 election. Trump lost Wisconsin in 2020 by about 21,000 votes. Wait admitted in 2022 that he requested Vos’ and Mason’s ballots to try to prove that the state’s voter registration system is vulnerable to fraud.” (03/25/26)

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2026/03/25/wisconsin-ballot-fraud/

Thomas L. Knapp

Don’t Legislate Morality: Most Americans Can’t Agree on What’s Immoral

Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille

“The moral argument for not making laws about many — especially victimless — activities is that people have a right to live their own lives so long as they don’t hurt anybody else. That’s a convincing case for those of us who naturally gravitate to a live-and-let-live take on life. But it’s unpersuasive to the growing ranks of those inclined to control freakery in these illiberal times, and who believe the state should step in to control bad things. The strongest rebuttal to the authoritarian case is that people so vigorously disagree as to what constitutes ‘bad’ that efforts to regulate a whole host of activities invite noncompliance. Recent polling provides evidence that Americans disagree on many issues.” (03/25/26)

https://reason.com/2026/03/25/dont-legislate-morality-most-americans-cant-agree-on-whats-immoral/

Thomas L. Knapp

We Did Win, Didn’t We?

Source: Libertarian Institute
by Charles Goyette

“‘We’ve won. Let me tell you, we’ve won. You know, you never like to say too early you won. We won. We won the – in the first hour it was over. We won,’ President Donald Trump declared, claiming ‘we won’ five times in just thirteen seconds at a Kentucky rally on March 11. We’ve seen such misbegotten braggadocio before. Six weeks into the elective invasion of Iraq, President George W. Bush starred in a campaign stunt when he landed on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier wearing a flight suit. He stood under a ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner ordered up and paid for by White House spinmeisters. It was the ‘end of major combat operations,’ Bush said. Only it wasn’t.” (03/25/26)

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/we-did-win-didnt-we

Thomas L. Knapp

The War on Wind Continues

Source: Paul Krugman
by Paul Krugman

“We are now in a global fossil fuel crisis. With oil and liquefied natural gas from the Persian Gulf unable to reach international markets due to Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, hydrocarbon prices have been soaring around the world and widespread shortages are emerging. Anyone who thought that the U.S. would be insulated from this dire picture thanks to its large domestic oil production has had a rude awakening: the average retail price of gasoline has risen more than $1 per gallon over the past month, while the price of diesel is up $1.60. But the Trump administration hasn’t allowed these short-run distractions to divert it from its long-run goals: It remains deeply committed to killing renewable energy, especially wind power, and increasing America’s reliance on fossil fuels.” (03/25/26)

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-war-on-wind-continues

Thomas L. Knapp