Author: Thomas L. Knapp

Source: CounterPunch
by Dean Baker

“Donald Trump may not be able to remember what things were like five years ago, when he handed the economy and the country to Joe Biden, but it is important that the rest of us do. As in so many other areas where Trump tries to turn reality on its head, he pushes the story of Biden inheriting a great economy, which he then wrecked. The reality is the opposite, Biden turned around an economy in shambles due to the pandemic, and handed off an economy that was widely touted as the envy of the world.” (11/20/25)

https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/11/20/inherited-economies/

Source: Quillette

“When the Danish scholar Bjorn Lomborg published The Skeptical Environmentalist in 2001, the reaction from the environmental establishment was not debate but an attempted excommunication. Scientific American devoted a special package to attacking the book as biased and error-ridden. Union of Concerned Scientists accused him of misrepresenting science and overstating good news. … Two decades later, the world looks more like Lomborg’s spreadsheets than like the early-2000s apocalypse rhetoric.” (11/20/25)

https://quillette.com/2025/11/20/a-vindication-of-bjorn-lomborg/

Source: Washington Post
by Marc A Thiessen

“Tucker Carlson’s effort to bring neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes into the mainstream of the conservative movement is not only morally reprehensible, it is a path to political suicide for the right. Those defending or excusing Carlson’s sane-washing of Fuentes need to ask themselves a simple question: Do they want to be a majoritarian movement or not? Conservatives cannot build a lasting majority without appealing to minority voters — and that won’t happen if they embrace White nationalists.” (11/20/25)

https://archive.is/4s3Wp

Source: ProSocial Libertarians
by Andrew Jason Cohen

“The suggestion that we should not discuss the controversial topic du jour is now often defended with claims about how it is uncivil or disrespectful to disagree with anyone or to bring up controversial issues that are sure to encourage disagreement. Despite the popularity of this view, it is a mistake. Not only is the avoidance policy a fool’s game, destined to fail regardless, but it is also misguided from the outset. … The reason the animosity festers is that if you refuse to allow yourself to disagree with someone, you’re essentially accepting that they are not capable or worthy of honest discourse.” (11/20/25)

https://prosociallibertarians.substack.com/p/how-to-talk-politics-at-thanksgiving

Source: The Dispatch
by Doug Bandow

“The United States political system is failing. Expanding political divisions have been exacerbated by the machinations of a political class unwilling to sacrifice its prerogatives, irrespective of the nation’s desperate needs. For a time, the gerontocracy controlling political affairs in Washington seemed to mimic that in Moscow prior to the Soviet regime’s collapse. … There is no simple fix to what is genuinely a looming crisis, in contrast to the many faux emergencies proclaimed by politicians to advance their usually prosaic partisan ends. However, one idea worth trying is an older, somewhat dated one: congressional term limits.” (11/20/25)

https://thedispatch.com/debates/congress-term-limits-reform-accountability-elections/