“More than 70% of high school students average less than 8 hours of sleep,” according to an October 1 research letter in JAMA Pediatrics (“Dose-Dependent Associations Between Sleep Duration and Unsafe Behaviors Among US High School Students”), “falling short of the 8 to 10 hours that adolescents need for optimal health. Insufficient sleep negatively affects learning and development and acutely alters judgment, particularly among youths.”
Author: Thomas L. Knapp
Tom has worked in journalism — sometimes as an amateur, sometimes professionally — for more than 35 years and has been a full-time libertarian writer, editor, and publisher since 2000. He’s the former managing editor of the Henry Hazlitt Foundation, the publisher of Rational Review News Digest (2003-present), former media coordinator and senior news analyst at the Center for a Stateless Society (2009-2015) and also works at Antiwar.com. He lives in north central Florida.
Brett Kavanaugh is the Swamp
President Donald Trump was elected at least in part on a promise to “drain the swamp.” As a populist pledge, that would amount to smashing DC’s system of rule by entrenched, “connected” bureaucrats like Brett Kavanaugh.
We Need More, Not Less, Separation of State and Journalism
The rise of free content and ease of entry into the field has us getting more “journalism” … but less real information. Opinion writers (like me) are a dime a dozen. Amateur stringers and glorified copy editors cover five-point-lede “hard news” on the cheap. But the shock troops of news, full-time investigative journalists, have to learn the ropes and they have to be paid. That’s not happening. The result: Many important things get missed and many things that aren’t missed get only insufficient, inaccurate — or worst, sponsor viewpoint biased — coverage.
Kavanaugh: A Little Perspective, Please
In what universe does not getting a gig as one of the nine most powerful judges in the United States equate to having one’s life “ruined” or “destroyed?” Don’t worry too much for Brett Kavanaugh. He’s going to be fine.
Two Cheers for Trump’s Declassification Order
On September 17, Politico reports, US president Donald Trump partially declassified a government surveillance application targeting former campaign consultant Carter Page and directed the US Department of Justice to publicly release text messages relating to the “Russiagate” probe between former FBI Director James Comey and other DoJ/FBI personnel.
Political Boycotts with Taxpayer Money? Just Don’t Do It
All well and good. One nice thing about markets is that they’re hyper-democracies in which we all get to vote with our patronage, every day and with every purchase. Unfortunately, some people think they’re entitled to vote with other people’s dollars. Marshall Fisher, head of Mississippi’s Department of Public Safety, is one such.
The House Gets Bi-Partisan; They Should Have Had a Food Fight Instead.
So much for gridlock. On September 12, the US House of Representatives proved that its members can in fact reach across the aisle to find common ground. On taxes? Spending? Foreign policy? Well, no. They agreed, on a voice vote, that they should get to decide what you can or cannot have for lunch.
John Bolton versus the International Criminal Court: A Simple Solution
Why is Bolton suddenly so concerned with protecting notions of “sovereignty” (he uses the word nine times) that the US government itself routinely ignores at its convenience, claiming global jurisdiction over individuals and organizations outside its own borders in matters ranging from the 17-year “war on terror” to its financial regulation and sanctions schemes?
The Anonymous Anti-Trump Op-Ed Inadvertently(?) Exposes Real Danger
The 25th Amendment doesn’t sound quite so over the top now as it did a week ago. Unfortunately, its beneficiaries would be the same gang minus their current leader.
Bernie’s Bozo Boondoggle (or, How to Keep Low-Income Workers Unemployed)
According to the press release from Sanders’s Senate office, Stop BEZOS “aims to end corporate welfare by establishing a 100 percent tax on corporations with 500 or more employees equal to the amount of federal benefits received by their low-wage workers. For example, if a worker at Amazon receives $2,000 in food stamps, the corporation would be taxed $2,000 to cover that cost.”