Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | The Libertarian Institute

The Ticking Time Bomb of Social Security

by Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | Nov 24, 2021 | Featured Articles

At a time when President Biden and congressional Democrats are pushing to expand the breadth of entitlements to include free preschool and subsidized child care, little attention is given to the fact that the country’s biggest existing entitlement program—Social Security—is a financial wreck. The program’s payouts have exceeded revenue since 2010, but the recent past is nowhere near as grim as the future. According to the latest annual report by Social Security’s trustees, the gap between promised benefits and future payroll tax revenue has reached a staggering $59.8 trillion. That gap...

Texas Is Not Free: A Case of Civil Asset Forfeiture

by Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | Oct 18, 2021 | Criminal Justice, Featured Articles

On May 14, 2019, Ameal Woods drove from rural Mississippi to Houston with $42,300 in cash. He was ready to achieve a major goal he and his wife had worked, saved and borrowed for: Purchasing a second semi truck for the fledgling trucking business he operated with his brother, and perhaps a trailer, too. Along Interstate 10 in Texas, however, his entrepreneurial dream turned into a nightmare. It started when Woods was pulled over by a Harris County sheriff’s deputy who claimed Woods had been following too closely behind the truck in front of him. The deputy asked Woods if he was carrying...

Raising the Debt Ceiling Is Raising Your Taxes

by Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | Oct 4, 2021 | Economics, Featured Articles

With Thursday’s passage of a continuing resolution that funds government operations until December 3rd, Congress dodged one fiscal cliff, but a bigger one looms ahead. The federal government has maxed out its credit, and if Congress doesn’t raise the statutory debt ceiling by October 18, the Treasury won’t be able to cover all of Uncle Sam’s obligations. With Democrats controlling the House, Senate and White House, Republicans have declared they’re leaving it entirely up to the Democrats to raise the ceiling through the budget reconciliation process. Democratic leaders and their...

How the FBI’s War on Drugs Contributed to the 9/11 Attacks

by Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | Sep 9, 2021 | Criminal Justice, Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

The story of 9/11 is filled with painful “what-ifs.” Among the most prominent: What if the CIA hadn’t blocked two FBI agents from alerting Bureau headquarters that a future 9/11 hijacker had obtained a multi-entry U.S. visa? What if the FBI hadn’t nixed agents’ request for a warrant to search the computer of “20th hijacker” Zacharias Moussaoui after his arrest in August 2001? What if the FBI hadn’t ignored a Phoenix agent’s July 2001 recommendation to contact aviation colleges across the country, on suspicion that Osama bin Laden was preparing extremists to “conduct terror activity against...

The War in Afghanistan Should Make You Reconsider Military Enlistment

by Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | Sep 3, 2021 | Blog, Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Though the war in Afghanistan is over, its grim history is filled with hard truths about what it really means to serve in the American military. Those truths are particularly relevant to anyone contemplating enlistment or commissioning in the armed forces. With that in mind, here’s a warning label informed by the grim lessons of Operation Enduring Freedom—the failed and futile 20-year war in Afghanistan. You Could Lose Your Life Or Limbs In a War That Accomplishes Nothing After 9/11, the U.S. government was right to lash out at Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. However, that mission was largely...

Surprised? Another Hate Crime Hoax Exposed

by Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | Aug 30, 2021 | Featured Articles

In mid-May, news broke of a disturbing incident at Bucknell University: Outlets across the country reported that, on the eve of final exams, a mob of 15 to 20 intolerant male students had victimized the school’s LGBTQ community via an attack on a residence hall established as a “safe space” for community members. The intruders were members of a former Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE) fraternity chapter that was shut down in 2019 over hazing violations. Before hosting the “Fran’s House” LGBTQ residential group, the building at the center of the disturbance was TKE’s decades-long home at Bucknell....

Government Never Had Control Over the Pandemic

by Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | Aug 16, 2021 | Featured Articles

In the early 11th century, King Canute—while at the peak of his power—set out to demonstrate to his fawning courtiers the limited power of royal edicts. After having his throne placed by the sea’s edge, he sat down and commanded the tide to stop rising. When the water began washing over his feet, he declared, “Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings.” Nearly a thousand years later, facing a different force of nature—COVID-19—an entire global generation of presidents, prime ministers, governors, mayors, public health officials, scientists and citizens is being given the...

Revenge of the Masks

by Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | Jul 29, 2021 | Featured Articles

Just when the forces of rationality had seemingly established a beachhead in the public health domain, they’re back on defense again, as the CDC declares vaccinated and unvaccinated people should wear masks indoors in areas of the country experiencing high transmission, and every schoolchild should be condemned to wear a mask all day long. The moves, which come in response to surging case counts, seem to demonstrate an impulse that animates many questionable government policies: “We have to do something,” regardless of whether that something can be reasonably expected to have a material...