Author: Thomas L. Knapp

Source: Law & Liberty
by Paul Moreno

“Robert Jackson was a key figure in mid-twentieth-century American liberalism. He rose rapidly up the cursus honorum of the New Deal. In the period between 1934 and 1941, Roosevelt appointed him Assistant General Counsel to the IRS, then Assistant Attorney General for the IRS. He then worked for the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division before becoming Solicitor General, Attorney General, and finally Associate Justice on the Supreme Court, serving from 1941 to 1954. Jackson was the last Supreme Court Justice who never attended college, nor had a law degree (he spent one year in law school and otherwise ‘read law,’ learning the trade as Lincoln had). He took a leave of absence to be the lead prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crimes trial. A zealous liberal in his political career, he became something of a conservative on the Court.” (11/13/25)

https://lawliberty.org/book-review/a-judicial-enigma/

Source: Reason
by Ed Tarnowski

“As demand for self-driving services such as Waymo grows, so does evidence of their safety. The autonomous ride-hailing service reports astronomical reductions in motor vehicle–related crashes and injuries in its autonomous vehicles (A.V.s) compared to cars helmed by humans. But with innovation comes those who fear it. … History is littered with failed attempts to resist technological progress—efforts now proven absurd. Civilization didn’t cave when the Luddites resisted textile mechanization in the early nineteenth century, nor did it cave when unions representing gaslight and horse-drawn carriage workers resisted electric lighting and automobiles. If those seeking to hinder advancements like these had their way, humanity would have never climbed out of the Stone Age. And today, we should not allow contemporary Luddites to thwart the unfolding progress of humanity.” (11/13/25)

https://reason.com/2025/11/13/the-new-luddites-want-to-pump-the-brakes-on-driverless-cars/

Source: The Atlantic
by Thomas Chatterton Williams

“In the age of MAGA, ideological lines that once distinguished left from right have blurred. Republicans who said they were willing to die for the market now support a president who tells the government to buy up shares in the private sector. (Bernie Sanders approves.) The right has also embraced cancel culture, a progressive trend it recently despised. But conservatives aren’t the only ones emulating the other side. In perhaps the most striking reversal of this era, progressives are now the ones who tend to speak like moralists. … When people describe the world by appealing to black-and-white morality, they tend to reveal more about themselves than anything else. For many, such language suggests that they hold their own views to be unimpeachable and the other side’s to be irredeemable. But moral clarity, like beauty, is perishable and — at least in practice — subjective.” (11/13/25)

https://archive.is/xOlge

Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Katrina Gulliver

“‘Imagine money falling from the sky. Would you slip a tenner into your pocket before you told anyone? Chances are, most of us would trouser a few notes rather than inform the authorities.’ This is the opening of economist and banker David McWilliams’s rollicking history of money, and his description of Operation Bernhard, the Nazi campaign to destabilize Britain by flooding the country with counterfeit cash. Lenin tried a similar ploy in Russia. Despite having different political beliefs, they ‘both understood the phenomenal power of money: undermine money and you undermine the fabric of society.’ That right there is McWilliams’s underlying theme: money is the fabric of society. He wants people to understand how cash shapes our world.” (11/13/25)

https://fee.org/articles/money-makes-the-world-go-round/