Author: Thomas L. Knapp

Source: Washington Post
by David Ignatius

“Hold off on those announcements of the dawn of the Chinese century.” (05/21/26)

https://archive.is/vcmOO

Source: Liberal Currents
by Matthew Downhour

“Dragging NATO into Iran, or making American participation in NATO contingent on action in Iran, threatens to erode the basics that make NATO functional in the first place. And European NATO states (and Canada) would be foolish to give in to this petulance — there is no formal understanding, ethical motivation, or even pragmatic consideration that would obligate or even argue in favor of Europe joining this American misadventure. If the Iran war is a test for NATO, it is a test of whether the alliance can retain a defined mission, or whether it will be subjected to perpetual mission creep. In the latter case, it cannot possibly survive.” (05/21/26)

https://www.liberalcurrents.com/nato-should-stay-out-of-iran/

Source: USA Today
by Dace Potas

“This is a fund with no congressional oversight resolving grievances outside the normal judicial process. Everyone involved in its creation ultimately works for Trump, either in his capacity as president or as a private citizen. Despite the Justice Department’s claims otherwise, it is difficult to imagine this becoming anything other than a partisan mess. Even if Trump or members of his family never directly receive money from the fund, it is impossible to separate his interests from the arrangement.” (05/21/26)

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2026/05/21/trump-irs-settlement-fund-doj-lawfare/90162669007/

Source: Reason
by CJ Ciaramella

“An armed IRS agent roaming the streets should send shivers down the spine of any freedom-loving American.” (for publication 06/26)

https://reason.com/2026/05/21/beware-the-blob-of-federal-police/

Source: The Dispatch
by Steven Weber

“For more than three years, public debate about the risk-benefit balance around artificial intelligence has been dysfunctional bordering on ridiculous, hostage to a binary so crude it would embarrass a freshman seminar. On one side are the ‘doomers,’ who are portrayed as insisting that frontier AI is an existential threat requiring immediate radical constraint. On the other are the ‘boomers,’ who treat any suggestion of oversight as a sci-fi-coded slowdown that would hand American technological supremacy to China. Each camp has its prophets, forums, think tanks, and a remarkable capacity to mistake assertion for argument. But the world just changed, and that dialogue is ready to end. That’s good news for amplifying the upside potential of AI.” (05/21/26)

https://thedispatch.com/article/artificial-intelligence-mythos-regulation-innovation/

Source: Libertarian Institute
by Joseph Solis-Mullen

“President Donald Trump’s recent two-day summit in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping concluded much as anticipated. In an article written ahead of the trip, I noted that expectations for substantive breakthroughs in the fraught Sino-American relationship were likely to be disappointed. The events of the visit bore this out. While the tone was notably, and welcomely, warmer than in recent years and both sides touted ‘fantastic trade deals,’ the core structural tensions — trade imbalances, technology restrictions, Taiwan, and regional security — remain largely unaddressed.” (05/21/26)

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/trumps-beijing-visit-shows-the-limits-of-diplomacy