Thomas L. Knapp | The Libertarian Institute

This Memorial Day, Remember the Victims of Democide

by Thomas L. Knapp | May 29, 2017 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Note: This column was originally published for Memorial Day 2016 This weekend, Americans will seize the opportunity to sleep in an extra day, fire up the family grill, and maybe — probably not, but maybe — wheel out to a family cemetery, lay flowers on graves, and contemplate the memories of their beloved for a few minutes. Veterans’ organizations will parade in celebration of their own fallen comrades with star-spangled patriotic spectacle, and families out shopping last-minute for brats, steaks and cold beer may encounter American Legionnaires taking donations for red paper poppies evoking...

The War on Drugs is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things, North Carolina Edition

by Thomas L. Knapp | May 28, 2017 | Blog

Apparently this month’s crop of stabbings, armed robberies, rapes/molestations and teacher/student sex scandals in Catawba County, North Carolina aren’t enough to keep the sheriff’s department busy. Or maybe they just have too many deputies on the payroll. Something’s obviously out of balance: They have time to go after gardeners. “A man was arrested after deputies found nearly an acre of opium poppy in a Catawba County field,” Charlotte’s WBTV News reports. “Deputies spent the day pulling plants and loading them into their trailers.” According to the Charlotte Observer, the uniformed...

Donald Trump and the Politics of Whine

by Thomas L. Knapp | May 22, 2017 | Featured Articles, Politics

“No politician in history, and I say this with great surety,” U.S. president Donald Trump told Coast Guard Academy graduates on May 17, “has been treated worse or more unfairly” than himself. A day later, in the wake of the U.S. Justice Department’s appointment of former FBI director Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate allegations of “Russian meddling” on his behalf in the 2016 presidential election, Trump once again offered a grandiose reference to his place in history, this time via Twitter: “This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!” Poor,...

The US Postal Service is Dying. Let it.

by Thomas L. Knapp | May 15, 2017 | Economics, Featured Articles

Like most monopolies, the US Postal Service isn’t interested in changing its business model. An enterprise hemorrhaging cash in a free market would cut prices, improve service, look for new revenue streams, or simply close its doors. The USPS solution, as usual, is to raise prices and hope for the best. Alternative proposal: Let’s put it out of its misery. The Service posted losses of $562 million in the first quarter of 2017, the Associated Press reports. This year will likely bring the Service’s sixth straight annual operating loss. While its package delivery revenues have grown, the...

Congress Should Just Say No to Trump’s Afghanistan Surge

by Thomas L. Knapp | May 10, 2017 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

With the US occupation of Afghanistan well into its sixteenth year and the country no closer to becoming a stable democracy than it was in late 2001, Antiwar.com reports that this isn’t an “all options are on the table” scenario. President Donald Trump seems to have rejected the idea of withdrawing US troops and ending the war. Instead, he intends to become the third president in a row to roll the dice on a “surge” — that is, to send in more troops (the initial estimate is anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 more in addition to the current 8,400) and hope for the best. That idea has never worked...

The Scandal Isn’t Post-Presidential Speaking Fees, It’s Political Pensions

by Thomas L. Knapp | May 5, 2017 | Economics, Featured Articles

As former US president Barack Obama’s second term drew toward its close last July, he exercised his veto power for the eleventh of 12 times, shutting down “The Presidential Allowance Modernization Act of 2016.” The bill, which easily passed both houses of Congress, would have reduced former presidents’ pensions and staff allowances dollar for dollar if their other incomes exceeded $400,000 per year. In the wake of Obama’s decision to accept a $400,000 fee for a Wall Street speaking engagement this September, the bill’s sponsors plan to reintroduce it. But neither the speaking fee nor the...

Trump is Right: “Shutdowns” Are Good For America

by Thomas L. Knapp | May 3, 2017 | Featured Articles, Politics

If he’s remembered for nothing else, Donald Trump will go down in history as the first president to think out his policies in public, 140 characters at a time. That may not be a bad thing. In fact, I think we should strongly consider a constitutional amendment limiting Congress to 140 characters per law. Hold that thought … “Our country needs a good ‘shutdown’ in September to fix mess!” the Donald suggested in a tweet on May 2, in a fit of pique over the US Senate’s 60-vote cloture requirement. That requirement forced Republicans to negotiate with Democrats over a stopgap spending bill, in...

‘National Security’: The Last Refuge of Vote-Buying Politicians

by Thomas L. Knapp | May 1, 2017 | Economics, Featured Articles

More than half a century ago, Congress passed the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. Since mid-April, US president Donald Trump has twice invoked one of the laws nearly forgotten provisions, ordering Commerce secretary Wilbur Ross to investigate the possibility that steel and aluminum imports “threaten to impair the national security.” If Ross says they do and Trump agrees, the law empowers him to “take such action, and for such time, as he deems necessary to adjust the imports of such article and its derivatives so that such imports will not so threaten to impair the national security.” Keep in...

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