united states

Chris Knight's avatar

I once met Newt Gingrich. He’s a strong writer and speaker. I think he’s got a very good mind for history. I also happen to share many of the views that he holds.

Nonetheless, I’ve got to say it…

Newt Gingrich is poised to become for the Republican Party in 2012 what John Kerry was for the Democrat Party in 2004.

Meaning that if Gingrich is the GOP’s nominee for President, that will most likely assure that Obama will be re-elected.

Part of me is wondering if that might have been the plan from the start, although by whom and for what purpose, I could only speculate.

Can anybody provide evidence strong enough to compel me that there is any significant difference between the “two major parties” running the show in the United States? And that’s all this really is: a show. Albeit one that has cost us billionstrillions ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Way, waaaaay back when this blog was just getting started, I posted an essay titled “People who should be shot when the revolution comes”. It was a tongue-in-cheek (kinda) piece about who in our society should be the first ones to be thrown against the wall if and when the citizens of this country finally get their fill and overthrow those who have gotten too uppity for anyone’s good.

That this particular post should come to mind more than seven years after writing it, might clue y’all in on the kind of rage that I feel when I read the e-mail that one of The Knight Shift’s viewers sent me recently.

I can’t put it any more plain than this: the income tax is a means of economic and personal slavery. Think about how much time and energy gets wasted by millions of honest people in this country ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Yesterday was the seventieth anniversary of the Empire of Japan’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor: the event that catapulted the United States into World War II. On the following day President Franklin Roosevelt delivered the famous “Infamy Speech” before a Joint Session of Congress. Less than an hour after Roosevelt’s address, Congress passed an official declaration of war against Japan.

And it was almost unanimous. The final tally was 388 for war, and 1 against…

Jeannette Rankin, member of the House of Representatives from the state of Montana, was the sole vote against the declaration of war. Rankin was also the first woman elected to Congress. During her previous term in Congress she had also voted against the United States entering what became known as World War I. And in case you’re wondering, she was a Republican.

As you can probably imagine, Rankin’s stance was roundly unpopular: not just ...

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Perhaps the most iconic photograph from the attack on Pearl Harbor: the battleship U.S.S. Arizona suffers a hit to her magazine by a Japanese torpedo.

1,177 sailors and officers perished aboard the Arizona. To this day, most of them are still there.

Today, seventy years later, there are approximately six thousand who survived the Pearl Harbor attack who are still among us.

Remembering them on this 70th anniversary, as well as those who died that day and those who have passed on since....

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Do you want to know why Veterans Day is on this date?

It was November the 11th, 1918, at the 11th hour, that the armistice took effect and the guns of the Western Front fell silent.

World War I, the Great War, the “war to end all wars”, had drawn to a close.

Veterans Day – a day which has come to honor all American veterans – was originally a day set aside to honor the service of the millions of soldiers from the United States who went “Over There” to fight in the trenches of Europe.

And this Veterans Day is the first that we have ever had without even one of those brave men and women among us…

Frank Buckles, the last surviving “doughboy”, passed away in February of this year. He was 110 years old.

They are all gone now.

May we never forget them....

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The big news this hour is that Sarah Palin has announced that she will not be running for President in the 2012 election.

Here’s the letter that she has sent out far and wide across the Intertubes…

October 5, 2011
Wasilla, Alaska

After much prayer and serious consideration, I have decided that I will not be seeking the 2012 GOP nomination for President of the United States. As always, my family comes first and obviously Todd and I put great consideration into family life before making this decision. When we serve, we devote ourselves to God, family and country. My decision maintains this order.

My decision is based upon a review of what common sense Conservatives and Independents have accomplished, especially over the last year. I believe that at this time I can be more effective in a decisive role to help elect other true public servants to office –

...
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Bev Perdue should do the right thing and resign as governor of North Carolina. And I am absolutely serious.

If she intended this as a joke, I don’t see how it could possibly have been funny at all. It’s too scary enough that Perdue conceived of such an unconstitutional and morally wrong idea, let alone verbally articulated it.

Here’s what North Carolina’s Worst Governor Ever said yesterday at a meeting of the Rotary Club in nearby Cary…

“I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won’t hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that. You want people who don’t worry about the next election.”

So Perdue wants to suspend democracy and elections in the name of reigning-in the economy. She said ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

…at the behest of President Obama, the armed forces of the United States have officially ended the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding homosexuals in the military.

Bad, bad move by the Obama administration. And I am only saying that with it being borne in mind that military life is by definition radically different from civilian life. It is not a situation that allows for attempts at social engineering. Those who enlist by and large know this. They accept it. When you sign up to serve in the armed forces you give up a significant portion of what freedoms you would have had outside the military. This is necessary for the cohesion and morale of the forces as much as it is for optimizing the individual to serve to the utmost of his or her ability. If this is not a tolerable situation for a person for whatever reason, that ...

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It’s all really quite simple.

Eliminate the personal income tax.

Slash corporate taxes.

Implement the national retail sales tax.

Give corporate tax cuts for each time a company hires a certain number of employees domestically (to encourage the trend away from outsourcing).

Impose higher trade tariffs.

No more “most favored nation” trade status for anyone.

Eliminate a lot of burdensome regulation that stifles businesses.

Cut government spending!

Do those things, and just watch the United States heal itself financially. Get back our AAA rating from Standard & Poor’s? Heck, we’d be the first country ever to get quadruple-A rating!...

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A few days ago I heard about Americans Elect. And the notion of it intrigued me enough that I spent some time this afternoon visiting its website, signing up and doing the “political colors” app.

So here’s what Americans Elect is: an Internet-based political party, committed to nominating a candidate for President of the United States in the 2012 election. To that end Americans Elect is working to get on the ballot in every state of the union. So far they’ve met the qualifications to have ballot access in Arizona, Nevada, Kansas and Alaska… and they’ve just turned in enough to be listed in California, too. If Americans Elect has its way, a candidate meeting all the requirements to be President (and Vice-President) according to the United States Constitution will be up for election alongside the Republican and Democrat candidates. Supposedly, all of this is an effort to ...

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