Author: Thomas L. Knapp

Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Richard M Ebeling

“President Trump and the current Federal Reserve Board of Governors differ as to what interest-rate changes should be focusing on and how the accompanying monetary changes should be applied to facilitate the achievement of the chosen shorter- or longer-term targets. But what is missed in most of the discussions, debates, and rhetorical exchanges is that both share a common institutional and policy premise: a government agency having the capacity to undertake monetary central planning.” (12/22/25)

https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/interest-rates-are-prices-not-arbitrary-policy-tools/

Source: Independent Institute
by Scott Beyer

“Since the federal government entered the highway business early last century, it has largely paid for roads by taxing gasoline purchases. The federal gas tax accounts for roughly 70 percent of Highway Trust Fund revenue, and every state has its own gas tax as well. But today people don’t buy as much gas, and these funds face shortfalls. According to the Pew Research Center, the collective road maintenance backlog of 24 states has grown to over $86 billion since 2015. The tax was never a particularly good way to fund roads, and new solutions are overdue. Fortunately, there may be an opportunity to take advantage of skyrocketing demand for warehouses and data centers to help pay for roads, by selling state and federal land near highways.” (12/21/25)

https://www.independent.org/article/2025/12/21/how-federal-land-sales-can-fund-highways/

Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp

“On December 17, surrounded by festive holiday decorations, US president Donald Trump delivered an upbeat — one might even say manic — address to the nation …. While many expected something weighty (perhaps announcement of further military escalation versus Venezuela), what they got was laundry list of Trump’s ‘accomplishments’ since his inauguration in January. Most of those ‘accomplishments’ — ruinous tariffs on American consumers, immoral and economically damaging immigration raids, etc. — were things we already knew about from watching our bank balances draw inexorably down. One, however, stood out to me as the most risible. ‘For the first time in 3,000 years,’ Trump said, he’s brought ‘peace to the Middle East.’ He said that, with as close to a straight face as he ever shows, hours after saluting the flag-draped caskets of two US National Guard members and a civilian interpreter killed in Syria the previous week.” (12/20/25)

https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/20208

Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson

“Cicero offered a useful piece of advice: Esse quam videri — ‘be rather than seem,’ that the important thing is to be virtuous or good or successful or courageous rather than merely to appear to be. Trump has spent his life turning that on its head: He was a middling businessman who was in bankruptcy court a lot more often than he was at the top of the game, so he spent years playing a successful businessman on television. He cannot write an ordinary good English sentence, but he paid someone to write a book and put his name on it. His imaginary friend John Barron would call writers at the New York Post and other outlets to tell them silly lies about everything from Trump’s business successes to his dating life. And, of course, he emblazons his name on things — most recently, the Kennedy Center.” (12/19/25)

https://archive.is/NhkN0

Source: Brownstone Institute
by Daniel Nuccio

“It seems strange thinking about Kill Bill in 2025 the way people did about Lawrence of Arabia or The Godfather in 2003, but they just don’t make movies like that anymore and it’s hard to imagine something like Kill Bill getting made in recent years by anyone other than someone with Tarantino’s clout. … Unlike films released between 2016-2024, Kill Bill never felt beholden to some woke Hays Code requiring films to conform to the delicate sensibilities of a thirty-five-year old cat mom with a grievance studies degree.” (12/20/25)

https://brownstone.org/articles/at-the-movies-but-for-how-long/