On June 2, the US Postal Service proposed a new rule in the Federal Register on standards for handling of mail ballots, with public comment open through July 2. That rule was issued pursuant to an executive order by US president Donald Trump.

While the proposal unambiguously claims that “states would retain full control over who would (or would not) be able to vote by mail in federal election,” US Postmaster General David Steiner told Congress that in actuality, the organization he runs would refuse to deliver ballots in states which don’t turn over voter data to the federal government.

While a federal judge has already nixed the scheme, it will probably end up working its way to the US Supreme Court.

Even if more courts, possibly including SCOTUS, act to prevent the US Snail from seizing control of elections, it seems to me that the message — “don’t mess with our votes” — isn’t really getting through to the US government.

Examples need to be made, and I think there’s a way to make one: A federal grand jury.

While the usual perception of grand juries is that they indict only those whose indictments are sought by prosecutors — who, in the old saying, “could get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich” — there’s nothing to PREVENT such a jury from handing down indictments against whomever, for whatever, they want.

What we need is a grand jury whose members are willing to get together, talk things over, and charge David Steiner and his underlings, per Title 18, Section § 371 of the US Code, with the federal crime of “conspiracy.”

What did Steiner and those who helped him craft and promulgate the rule conspire to do? They conspired to — and have publicly confessed to conspiring to — violate Title 18, Section §1703:

“Whoever, being a Postal Service officer or employee, unlawfully secretes, destroys, detains, delays, or opens any letter, postal card, package, bag, or mail … shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.”

I’ve got mixed opinions on voting itself (for one thing, I’m not sure it accomplishes much), and strong opinions on mail (the government should get entirely out of the matter and let the private sector handle it), but this particular matter is about rule of law.

Regardless of whether I like the laws, or how they’re made, or who gets to make them, I’m a big supporter of holding the government and its officials TO the laws they claim are so important for OUR “protection.”

This is such a clear-cut case of a government official openly announcing that he’s conspired with others to violate the laws he’s sworn to abide by and enforce that just suing for relief isn’t enough.

David Steiner really needs to spend some time — even if only a few hours between his arrest and a presidential pardon — locked in a small room, wearing an orange coverall, contemplating the gravity of his offenses. That would be good not just for his soul, but for our freedoms.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Between ruinous wars abroad (e.g. the war on Iran) and at home (e.g. the wars on immigrants and drugs), rising inflation, election-rigging attempts from both sides of the major party “aisle,” an apparent rising trend of “teen takeover” riots, and a host of other problems, the recent algae bloom fiasco at Washington, DC’s Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool seems to rank rather low on the list of things Americans might want to obsess over.

I am, however, a slave to the news cycle, and for some reason that’s one of late June’s dominant stories. So hey, let’s talk about it.

The bare basics:

US president Donald Trump touted a “makeover” for the Reflecting Pool, including a new “American Flag Blue” liner, then handed the job off to a crony contractor who, for $14 million, managed to completely screw it up. Almost immediately, the pool took on the hue, and odor, of a sewage lagoon.

Naturally, Trump wasn’t going to blame himself for the dumb idea, or his pet contractor for the poor execution, or himself again for parading his motorcade across the pool after the liner was installed — almost certainly holing/tearing it in spots — so he manufactured imaginary vandals and started having people arrested (including former Olympic canoeist David Hearn, for the “crime” of touching a floating piece of the torn liner).

Apart from the arrests, it all really feels like a mildly funny “dog bites man” story: The usual government incompetence, the usual minor corruption, the usual results.

But this time, it captured the public imagination. The people want answers, and the people want solutions. Therefore, I, a servant of the people, have offered the explanation above and will offer a solution below.

My solution has three parts.

Part one: Drain the pool.

Part two: Zone the pool “commercial.”

Part three: Auction the pool off to a new, private sector, owner.

I mean, it’s prime commercial real estate, right? Smack in the middle of a busy tourist area, lots of people walking around all day long with money in their pockets.

And have you ever noticed what that tourist area’s called? “The National Mall.” But good luck finding a Nordstrom or Bath & Body Works there.  It’s mostly just museums and statues of, or for, dead people.

It’s not like that particular reflecting pool is unique or necessary. There are two others — the Smithsonian Pollinator Garden’s Reflecting pool and the Capitol Reflecting Pool. And if that’s not enough water, there’s also the Constitution Gardens Pond and the Tidal Basin. Not to mention, you know, the Potomac River.

Drained, filled in, and built on, the Reflecting Pool would be a LITTLE small as shopping malls go — 339,000 square feet — but anchored by, say, a Walmart Supercenter (about 180,000 square feet) and filled out with a few specialty shops and a spacious food court, it would be far more useful, and a far better expression of “national pride,” than the current stinking, algae-filled pretext for presidential graft, political pageantry/stuntery, and vengeful arrest tantrums.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

It comes, it goes, but seldom a month goes by without the notion of “term limits” popping up in the American political discussion.

At the moment — and since Sheldon Whitehouse proposed legislation for it in 2023 — that discussion has mostly revolved around the Supreme Court, whose justices remain in office, according to the Constitution, “during good Behaviour,” generally understood as “for life absent impeachment or voluntary retirement.” Whitehouse wants non-renewable 18-year terms.

Really, though, term limits are a perpetual panacea.

Congressional candidates talk about them a lot — usually when promising to serve no more than X terms in the US House of Representatives, and right up to the point where they decide to seek their X+1th terms “due to popular demand.”

The president is already limited to two four-year terms. That limit  required a constitutional amendment to implement, as would House or Senate term limits and, arguably, Supreme Court term limits. Some would like to see the presidential version changed to a single six-year term.

I’m skeptical that term limits, as envisioned by their promoters, would do much to restrain or improve the quality of government, and as a political matter their opponents aren’t wrong when they point out that “we already have term limits, they’re called elections.”

At the state level, in Missouri, I watched what happened after legislative term limits became law. Instead of one person sitting in a state house or senate seat forever, we got a “ladder and rope” system with politicians climbing the ladder from local office all the way to state senate (and possibly the executive branch), term-limiting out and moving up to the next rungs, while throwing down ropes and pulling hand-selected proteges behind them and into the offices they vacated. Different faces, same ideas … and a more difficult system for outsiders to break into at all than if vacated seats became “open” in any real sense.

But if we want to give term limits a real try, I have some ideas on the matter.

First, the limit should be one term.

Second, the term should be fairly short — say, two years.

Third, once a person has been elected to a particular office, that person becomes ineligible for election to any other office, and for employment by any branch of the government in question … ever, for life.

That may sound extreme, but let’s look at the impact on the federal government (because it happens to be so, I’m treating local, state, and federal governments as separate governments), and include cabinet appointees and Supreme Court justices (even though they’re appointed rather than elected).

That comes to 561 people (435 US Representatives, 100 US Senators, one president, one vice-president, 15 cabinet secretaries, and nine Supreme Court justices).

With a population of 340 million, the US could fill each of those offices about 610,000 times. Single two-year terms and lifetime bans afterward wouldn’t  lead to a labor shortage.

What it WOULD lead to is more difficulty building perpetual political machines and an entrenched political class.

Which is why politicians would hate it.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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