New Hampshire: Once More Unto the Breach
By Thomas L. Knapp With nearly two years to go before the 2020 presidential primaries kick off, the vultures are already circling New Hampshire. The Washington Post’s John Wagner reports on recent or coming visits to the state by US president Donald Trump, vice-president Mike Pence, 2016 also-ran John Kasich, and former US Senator […]
Some Questions from the Edge of Immortality
By Thomas L. Knapp Nectome, a startup headed by two former artificial intelligence researchers, is serious about immortality. They’re touting a process for preserving the human brain at the point of death (by killing the patient with the preservative), with the next (unfortunately still notional) step being to “re-start” that brain as computer software. […]
Cakes, Guns, Discrimination and Freedom of Association
By Thomas L. Knapp In the wake of the mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, a number of businesses have moved to distance themselves from scary-looking weapons like the AR-15, from younger purchasers of weapons in general, and from organizations that don’t support laws violating the Second Amendment to the US […]
Capitol Punishment: Or, Keeping House is too Expensive
By Thomas L. Knapp Politico reports on a letter to US Representative and House Ethics Committee chairwoman Susan Brooks (R-IN), from more than two dozen members of the Congressional Black Caucus, requesting an investigation into “the legality and propriety” of lawmakers sleeping in their offices. Among their complaints are that the free lodging and […]
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Russiagate
. by Thomas L. Knapp “An epidemic terror seized upon the nations,” wrote Charles Mackay in his 1841 masterpiece, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. “It was a crime imputed with so much ease, and repelled with so much difficulty, that the powerful, whenever they wanted to ruin the weak, and could fix […]
Why We Must “Politicize” Guns
by Thomas L. Knapp Every time there’s a mass shooting, or even a particularly well-publicized single homicide, all of America’s political factions go directly to battle stations on the question of whether or not the violence can be reduced or eliminated with “gun control” legislation. As the debate rages on, the calls begin to ring […]
No Huawei! US Spy Chiefs Reverse Course on Phone Spying
by Thomas L. Knapp If it seems like only a year ago that the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was telling us how dangerous it is for Americans to have encrypted smart phones that make it hard for the FBI to poke around in our data, that’s because yes, it really was […]
Veterans in Politics: It’s Not About Honor
by Thomas L. Knapp The Atlantic’s Ronald Brownstein reports that a new political organization, With Honor, “has launched a major effort to elect to the House more recent military veterans who commit to working across party lines. … a bipartisan core of House Members who are inclined to seek common ground, whatever their personal […]
Bye, Bye, FBI? The Case for Disbanding the Federal Frankenstein’s Monster
by Thomas L. Knapp The Federal Bureau of Investigation is always under fire for something. As of late January, that something is destruction of evidence. Text messages between agents involved in the Bureau’s investigations of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, from a key time frame during the presidential transition, are missing. Congress, the Bureau, […]
Oprah for President? Why Not?
by Thomas L. Knapp The Cecil B. Demille Award is an honorary Golden Globe recognizing “outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment,” first bestowed (upon its namesake filmmaker) in 1952. On January 7, Oprah Winfrey, the first African-American woman to receive the prize, accepted with a rousing speech that has fans calling for a […]
