Bonnie Kristian | The Libertarian Institute

We Have Enough Problems; Don’t Make War with Iran Another

by Bonnie Kristian | Jan 14, 2021 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

It is nigh impossible to look away from the chaos in Washington, but U.S.-Iran relations in the waning days of the Trump administration deserve a wary glance. Two U.S. bombers flew a “deterrence mission” in the Gulf region this past Thursday. U.S. Central Command has yet to release a statement on the flight, but an official described the last such mission in December as a means of ensuring “that if the Iranians do think they have a plan that’s executable, that they think twice before executing it, because they do see that we have a robust posture and presence still remaining in the region...

WaPo Editors: We Have to Help Destroy Yemen to Save It

by Bonnie Kristian | Jun 5, 2018 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Over the past year, the Washington Post editorial board has routinely ignored the US’s involvement in the siege of Yemen—a bombing and starvation campaign that has killed over 15,000 civilians and left roughly a million with cholera. As FAIR noted last November (11/20/17), the Washington Post ran a major editorial (11/8/17) and an explainer (11/19/17) detailing the carnage in Yemen without once mentioning the US’s role in the conflict—instead pinning it on the seemingly rogue Saudis and the dastardly Iranians. This was in addition to an op-ed that summer by editorial page editor Jackson...

Media Ignore Government Influence on Facebook’s Plan to Fight Government Influence

by Bonnie Kristian | May 22, 2018 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Politics

Facebook announced Thursday it was partnering with DC think tank the Atlantic Council to “monitor for misinformation and foreign interference.” The details of the plan are vague, but Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab wrote in a non-bylined Medium post (5/17/18) that the goal was to design tools “to bring us closer together” instead of “driving us further apart.” Whatever that means, exactly. Behind its generic-sounding name and “nonpartisan” label, the Atlantic Council is associated with very particular interests. It’s funded by the US Department of State and the US Navy, Army...

DEA Bribed Snoops with Stolen Money to Violate 4th Amendment

by Bonnie Kristian | Dec 7, 2016 | Featured Articles, Justice

The Fourth Amendment is clear that the government can’t search our persons or property without a specific warrant permitting the investigation. So what do you do if you’re the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and you want to rifle through innocent Americans’ mail and luggage without bothering with all that annoying Constitution stuff? Well, a Justice Department (DOJ) audit of the DEA released this fall reveals that the federal agency decided to skirt that pesky Fourth Amendment by bribing citizen “volunteers” to rifle on their behalf. Buzzfeed News reports (emphasis added): Department...

Police Accountability and the Killing of Philando Castile

by Bonnie Kristian | Nov 17, 2016 | Featured Articles, Justice

In July, just a few miles from my home in St. Paul, Minn., Philando Castile was fatally shot by a police officer, Jeronimo Yanez, during a traffic stop. A horrified nation watched Castile’s death play out live on Facebook, as his girlfriend had the presence of mind to livestream and narrate the final moments of his life. Soon after, we learned Castile was a beloved cafeteria manager at an elementary school. He had no criminal record, and his only previous interactions with police were the endless harassment he was subject to thanks to abusive policing for profit. Yesterday, we found out...

Now Can We Start Making the Presidency Less Powerful?

by Bonnie Kristian | Nov 11, 2016 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism

In March, when Donald Trump’s inevitability was more accomplished than most of us realized, I saw a silver lining to his popularity and then-potential presidency: Simply imagining Trump in the White House was enough to make many people understand for the first time just how dangerous our too-powerful executive really is. The rise of Donald Trump—no matter what else one thinks of him—has one big advantage, I argued, because it perfectly illustrates what we libertarians have been saying for years, namely that the executive branch has way, way, way too much power. To be sure, there are a...