Author: Thomas L. Knapp

The Dark Righteousness & Dark Priesthood of The Socialists

Source: The Findings Substack
by Paul Rosenberg

“Socialists (by a variety of names) lorded it over the late 20th century by hijacking the sensibilities of Westerners and weaponizing their imperfections. This may sound new to you, but it’s really not; it’s something we’ve all lived with. There’s a long history behind this, of course, but I’ve covered that elsewhere and will leave it aside for today. What matters now is to see how the people of the West have had their virtues used against them, effectively and at length. The first part of this is what I’m calling dark righteousness, and it’s a trick we’ve all seen in practice.” (10/22/25)

https://thefindings.substack.com/p/the-dark-righteousness-and-dark-priesthood

Thomas L. Knapp

Palestine: Israeli Knesset approves bill to annex occupied West Bank

Source: Jerusalem Post [Jerusalem]

“The Knesset approved advancing a private member’s bill to apply Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank on Wednesday. … The vote passed by a narrow margin of 25-24 following a heated discussion in the Knesset. It will now be transferred to the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, where it will need to be brought up for discussion before undergoing a second and third vote in the plenum. … According to Israeli law, the current status of the territories it captured from Jordan in the Six Day War, save for east Jerusalem, is that of a ‘temporary belligerent occupation,’ and the legal governor of the territories is the IDF Central Command’s commanding officer. … In 2024, the International Court of Justice in The Hague issued an advisory opinion that Israel’s presence in the West Bank was no longer temporary and therefore unlawful under international law.” (10/22/25)

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-871299

Thomas L. Knapp

WA: City’s ex-treasurer sentenced to probation, $937k in restitution

Source: Seattle Times

“The former city clerk and treasurer of a small town in Lewis County was sentenced to five years’ probation and ordered to repay nearly $1 million in city funds that she’d embezzled over the course of nine years. Tamara Clevenger, the former Morton city clerk-treasurer, embezzled $937,584 from taxpayers from 2013 to 2021, according to charging documents. Federal prosecutors sought a 36-month prison sentence followed by three years of probation. A federal judge in Tacoma declined to order any prison time last week.” [editor’s note: If the government of a city of about a thousand people can have a million bucks go missing and not even notice until a state audit, that government has WAY too much money – TLK] (10/22/25)

https://archive.is/ukvak

Thomas L. Knapp

NFL stands by Bad Bunny as Super Bowl halftime headliner despite criticism from Trump

Source: CBC News [Canadian state media]

“The NFL is not considering dropping Bad Bunny as its Super Bowl halftime headline performer, commissioner Roger Goodell said Wednesday, reaffirming a decision to put the Grammy-winning Puerto Rican artist on the league’s biggest stage — a decision that led to criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump and some of his supporters. Goodell addressed the Bad Bunny question at his news conference following the annual fall owners meeting. It’s the first time he’s commented on the decision, announced in late September. The choice has garnered worldwide attention, including both an increase in streams of Bad Bunny’s music — and backlash.” (10/22/25)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/bad-bunny-halftime-nfl-9.6949081

Thomas L. Knapp

The Deepfake Presidency

Source: The Atlantic
by Franklin Foer

“Donald Trump’s rise tracks the decline of that thing we once agreed to call reality. He cemented his place in the popular imagination with the advent of reality television, a genre that promised authenticity, even as the supposedly unscripted scenes were carefully manipulated by producers. On The Apprentice, which debuted in 2004, Trump was the embodiment of a culture just beginning to blur the line between what was real and what merely looked like it. In his second term as president, Trump — now with the help of artificial intelligence — is completing the revolution that made him.” (10/22/25)

https://archive.is/m3jKx

Thomas L. Knapp

Liberal Principles for a New Environmentalism

Source: Law & Liberty
by Jonathan H Adler

“Congress constructed the edifice of federal environmental regulation atop a pile of misconceptions and mistaken assumptions. Once erected, it has withstood meaningful efforts at reform, and atrophied. However much some existing laws helped address twentieth-century environmental problems, they are increasingly obsolete and ill-suited to today’s environmental challenges. Steven Hayward is absolutely correct that ‘it is long past time for something new,’ and properly identifies many of the key attributes upon which a ‘new environmentalism’ could be built.” (10/22/25)

https://lawliberty.org/forum/liberal-principles-for-a-new-environmentalism/

Thomas L. Knapp

North Korea: Regime fires short-range ballistic missiles ahead of APEC summit

Source: United Press International

“North Korea fired a flurry of short-range ballistic missiles on Wednesday, Seoul’s military said, a week ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s scheduled visit to South Korea for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. ‘Our military detected several projectiles presumed to be short-range ballistic missiles fired from the Junghwa area of North Hwanghae Province in a northeasterly direction around 8:10 a.m. today,’ Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a text message to reporters. … The launch was North Korea’s fifth of the year, and the first since South Korean President Lee Jae Myung took office in June.” (10/22/25)

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2025/10/22/North-Korea-fires-short-range-ballistic-missiles-before-APEC-summit/3641761117743/

Thomas L. Knapp