Author: Thomas L. Knapp

Source: Libertaran Institute
by Thomas Eddlem

“For all the Republican fear-mongering over Democratic Party socialism, the Democrats have had a non-existent record of getting their much-touted socialist schemes enacted; even when President Barack Obama had an electoral mandate for a ‘public option’ on health care and a majority in both the U.S. House and Senate, Democrats couldn’t get it passed. But President Donald Trump’s copying of China’s ‘golden share’ concept via executive order by taking shares in private companies is, unfortunately, a much more real, damaging, and sustainable form of socialism.” (09/14/26)

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/the-reality-of-republican-socialism

Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Tim Worstall

“There was a time when 80% of the nation was involved in growing the food to feed 100% of the nation. Something it achieved patchily, in some years didn’t achieve. Then came the tractor – a catchall for the reaping machine, combine, tractor, seed drill and on – plus ocean going steamships to transport food and on again. We currently use some 2% of the labour of the nation to feed 100% of the nation. That 78% of the nation’s labour is not involved in the production nor maintenance of tractors. Sure, sure, tractors produced new jobs for mechanics and drivers and so on. But that’s not what made us richer. … Rather, it’s the freeing of labour from that now automated task which allows other things to be done.” (09/14/26)

https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/we-have-to-understand-the-effect-of-ai-on-jobs-correctly

Source: exile in happy valley
by Nicky Reid

“[I]s the Donald in fact the worst president in American history? He certainly seems to be breaking his back trying but there is some very stiff competition, and I’m not convinced that the majority of the navel gazing wonk class are using the proper criteria for judgement. When too many people talk about the worst president in American history, the focus always seems to veer heavily towards dysfunction and scandal. Nixon ransacking the Oval Office like a feral werepig gagging on a fist full of ludes while J. Edna lines up the dudes …. But all of this cracked reasoning negates the simple fact that what we seem to be asking for here is what amounts to a functional conductor for a killing machine.” (09/13/26)

https://exileinhappyvalley.blogspot.com/2026/09/trump-may-indeed-be-worst-president-in.html

Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey

“A government ban here in America would do nothing to keep AI Superintelligence from advancing; it will continue to advance, just not as much here in the U.S. It would progress in other countries or here in America, but underground. Sanders’ Act would help other countries like China to advance with us out of the way. Handing AI Superintelligence into the hands of government bureaucrats is one of the dumbest ideas I’ve heard in a while coming out of D.C. or Vermont. We do not need a centralized, unaccountable government superpower in control of all this information. We need strict, real-world legal liability, property rights, and contract enforcement rather than preemptive federal licensing.” (09/13/26)

https://palmbeachexaminer.substack.com/p/why-banning-artificial-superintelligence

Source: The Bulwark
by Sarah Longwell

“When I was coming up in the conservative movement, one of the hallmarks of Republican grievance was the belief that the ‘mainstream media’ was controlled by liberals and had a systemic bias against conservatives. The political and cultural right responded to this imbalance by building an industry designed to reduce public trust in mainstream media—hammering the ‘liberal bias’ narrative relentlessly. But they didn’t stop there. They also built an entire competing media ecosystem. And they had a roughly fifteen-year head start on doing it. By the time Trump arrived in 2015, the infrastructure was already firmly in place.” (09/13/26)

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/how-maga-bewildered-voters-into-its-alternate-reality