Jacob Hornberger | The Libertarian Institute

Big Spender Trump Is Drowning in His Swamp

by Jacob Hornberger | Jan 2, 2020 | Economics, Featured Articles, Politics

First it was the generals who took control over U.S. foreign policy, preventing President Trump from bringing the troops home from the Middle East and Afghanistan, as he said he was going to do. And now, it’s the federal bureaucracy that has absorbed Trump. According to the Washington Post, Trump has just “signed off on 12 weeks of paid leave for new parents, a generous raise, and a midweek vacation day before Christmas against the recommendation of his own staff — and as he issued an exuberant letter of thanks to ‘Our Incredible Federal Workforce.’” SOS! Trumpsters need to save their man...

Asset Forfeiture and the Destruction of American Liberty

by Jacob Hornberger | Dec 3, 2019 | Economics, Featured Articles, Libertarianism

For centuries, it has been an established tenet of Western jurisprudence that a person cannot be punished for a crime unless the government first convicts him of the crime in a court of law. After the Constitution called the federal government into existence, our American ancestors demanded that this principle be enshrined in the Bill of Rights because they were convinced that federal officials would end up violating it. The Fifth Amendment states in part: “No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury…. nor...

The Kennedy Autopsy 2

by Jacob Hornberger | Nov 22, 2019 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism

Fifty-six years ago today, President John F. Kennedy was shot dead on the streets of Dallas, Texas. The official story is that a lone nut named Lee Harvey Oswald, without any motive, committed the assassination. During the past several decades, however, the overwhelming amount of circumstantial evidence, much of which was intentionally kept secret, points to a national-security regime-change operation to oust Kennedy from office and elevate Vice President Lyndon Johnson to the presidency. A key to understanding the assassination lies in a critically important event that occurred after the...

Two More U.S. Deaths for Nothing in Afghanistan

by Jacob Hornberger | Nov 20, 2019 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Libertarianism

Two more U.S. soldiers have been killed during combat-support operations in Afghanistan. This brings to 19 the number of U.S. soldiers killed so far this year in the U.S. government’s forever war in that country. A total of 2,400 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since the U.S. invaded the country in 2001. It is unknown how many people U.S. forces have killed in Afghanistan because the U.S. government’s policy is to not keep track of the number of foreigners who are killed. An interesting question arises: What will U.S. officials tell the family members of those two dead...

Who Are the Real Friends of the Troops?

by Jacob Hornberger | Oct 8, 2019 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Ever since the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, it has been an article of faith that Americans should thank the troops for their service in those two countries. Yet, with the exception of libertarians and few leftists, the fact is that during the two decades of death, injury, suffering, destruction, and out of control federal spending and debt that threatens to send the government into bankruptcy, the overwhelming majority of Americans never openly demanded that the U.S. government bring the troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq. There certainly haven’t been any massive antiwar...

Why No Congressional Investigation into Epstein’s Intelligence Connections?

by Jacob Hornberger | Aug 22, 2019 | Featured Articles, Politics

With convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein now dead, the Justice Department has launched an investigation into prison procedures that allowed him to commit suicide. Meanwhile, women who were sexually abused or raped by Epstein when they were minors are continuing civil actions against Epstein’s estate. But why no congressional investigation into Epstein’s relationship, if any, to intelligence agencies, including the CIA, the Mossad, or any others? Have we gotten to the point where everyone is so scared to be labeled a “conspiracy theorist” that Congress is precluded from conducting a...

Open Borders Are Compatible With a Welfare State

by Jacob Hornberger | Aug 6, 2019 | Featured Articles, Politics

For some time now, there has been a conservative faction within the libertarian movement that has advocated that libertarians abandon their position in favor of open borders and instead join up with conservatives and progressives in support of government-controlled borders. In doing so, these conservative-oriented libertarians always fail to address one of the principal costs of abandoning libertarian principle on this particular issue — an immigration police state, one consisting of highway checkpoints for travelers who have never left the United States, roving Border Patrol checkpoints,...

Gun Violence in California

by Jacob Hornberger | Jul 31, 2019 | Featured Articles, Politics

Upon hearing that a man dressed in a military-style outfit was shooting people with an assault rifle at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in California on Sunday, I imagine that there were at least some Californians saying to themselves, “That’s impossible. It’s illegal in California to take an assault rifle into a public festival.” Indeed, according to Wikipedia, “The gun laws of California are some of the most restrictive in the United States.” So, what are gun-control advocates in California going to do now? Make their gun laws even more restrictive? For 20 years, I have been writing that people...