On March 14, US president Donald Trump signed an executive order reducing “statutory functions of unnecessary governmental entities to what is required by law.”

Among other institutions, the order targets the United States Agency for Global Media and the broadcast media it operates and funds: Voice of America, Radio and Television Martí, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks.

At less than one 6,750th of last year’s $6.75 trillion federal spending, USAGM may seem like small potatoes, but as the late US Senator Everett Dirksen (R-IL) reportedly said, “a billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you’re talking about real money.” And good reasons for wadding up the agency and tossing it in the dustbin of history go far beyond the financial.

What are the agency and its outlets, really? In a word, propaganda.

Their entire purpose is and always has been to regale the world — especially that portion of its population ruled by non-US-approved governments — with the US government’s take on every event and every issue.

While that approach never seemed very much like what America advertises itself as, it may have made at least a little sense during the Cold War when Radio Moscow and China Radio International likewise spread their regimes’ messages via the airwaves.

Now, though, in addition to not reflecting supposed American values (you know, free speech and free press instead of government propaganda), those state-operated broadcast media are beyond redundant.

These days, US “mainstream private sector” media — print, radio, television, and Internet — go toe-to-toe with competitors (state-operated and “private sector” alike) worldwide, reaching far more people than their USAGM predecessors.

And, for the most part and in most respects,  those “private sector” platforms have long since brought their editorial lines into compliance with the US regime’s every whim.

Yes, American media tend to segregate along partisan lines, but they’re generally all MURKA! (as defined by Washington, DC) all the time, from Fox News on the “right” to MSNBC on the “left.” Each of those outlets, and many others, dispose of budgets several times that of USAGM while serving as, effectively, government stenographers without tax funding from Congress.

I’d personally prefer a more combative and inquisitive American press to “private sector” government propaganda mills, but that ship has sailed. Why continue paying government to do what it’s managed to cow the “private sector” into doing for it? Give USAGM the ax.

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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“House Democrats erupted into apoplexy,”  Axios reported on March 14, “after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he would support Republicans’ stopgap government funding measure.”

With their surrender, Schumer and nine other Senate Democrats enabled passage of a “continuing resolution” that kicked the government’s budget and debt cans down the road yet again, this time through September 30.

Schumer’s case for a yes vote was both practical  (without the resolution, the federal government would have gone into a fake “shutdown”  and its “non-essential” functions would have been shuttered until a deal was reached) and political (Schumer feared that Democrats would receive more public blame for the shutdown than Republicans).

The Democratic case against that yes vote was likewise both practical (the resolution contained several elements most Democrats oppose) and political (if Democrats won’t stand up to Donald Trump and the Republican Party, why would they expect people to vote for them in the 2026 midterms?).

But let’s not fall victim to confusion here. The Democrats objecting to Schumer’s surrender don’t, for the most part, offer any attractive alternative to the GOP program. Like the Republicans, they’re fine with insane levels of government spending, continuing deficits, increasing debt, and onerous taxation.

The whole thing is half Off-Off Broadway theater and half what Freud called “the narcissism of small differences,” wherein similar people with similar ideas lose their minds over trivial disagreements.

For those of us who aren’t in the tank for either  party, it’s less complicated.

First, if a government function is “non-essential,” why is government doing it in the first place?

Second, if we’re going to bother putting ourselves through the recurring ritual of electing supposed representatives to guard whatever we perceive as our interests, shouldn’t we expect those representatives to actually fight for those interests?

The answers to those questions explain the current situation.

Political government itself is “non-essential” and then some, at least to normal people. Its sole purpose is to transfer wealth and power from the productive class to the political class. It’s only “essential” to the preening, posturing sociopaths who sit in, or visit to lobby, offices on Capitol Hill.

The purpose of all the electoral pageantry is to help us convince ourselves that we need them. We don’t.

The federal government shouldn’t just be partially and temporarily shut down. It should be totally and permanently excised and thrown in the biohazard bin like the cancerous tumor it is.

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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In early March, US president Donald Trump upped the stakes on his previous musings about purchasing Greenland from Denmark. “We need it really for international world security,” he said in a speech to Congress. “And,” despite disinterest in the notion from Greenlanders and Danes, “I think we’re going to get it. One way or the other, we’re going to get it.”

One way: Denmark and/or Greenland agree.

The other: US military forces invade and occupy, and the US government annexes, Greenland.

Those are really the only two ways. And while Trump has a well-earned reputation as a mercurial flip-flopper, he wouldn’t keep bringing it up if he didn’t have a persistent bee in his bonnet.

The idea of acquiring Greenland isn’t fundamentally as daft as it sounds — the place is rich in natural resources and located conveniently to support the Arctic ambitions of whichever regime controls it — but absent the consent of its inhabitants, the means of acquisition are necessarily reduced to war.

And the thing about wars is that short little wars tend to turn into long big wars. I’d say “unexpectedly,” but history says to expect it.

Would Trump really pull that trigger? If so, it probably won’t be over “national security” considerations. The reasons will be domestic and rooted in the economic chaos produced by his “trade war” antics.

“If soldiers are not to cross international boundaries on missions of war,” Otto T. Mallery wrote in 1943, “goods must cross them on missions of peace.”

At some point, that quote got shortened (and misattributed to Frederic Bastiat) in the popular mind to “when goods don’t cross borders, soldiers will,” which works just as well.

The standard argument for Mallery’s point is that international trade promotes amicable ties. If 50% of your oil or 30% of your grain comes from a trading partner, going to war means supply disruptions, shortages, and high prices. War is bad for the economies of nations engaged in international trade, so they’re less likely to engage in it.

There’s a second argument, though, far more applicable to Trump in particular:

Going to TRADE war ALSO means supply disruptions, shortages, and high prices.

Supply disruptions, shortages, and high prices translate to domestic discontent.

War provides a great distraction during times of domestic discontent.

You may have noticed that Trump’s an enthusiastic trade warrior.

You’ve almost certainly begun to notice the effects of Trump’s trade war enthusiasm on your own bottom line.

If you’re not discontent, you soon will be.

At some point, Trump’s options will come down to extracting his cranium from his rectum on trade and economics, or distracting you with a war. The likelihood of the former, based on his record, looks slim.

If not Greenland, Mexico. If not Mexico, Panama. If not Panama, Canada. Heck, maybe all of them and more.

War wouldn’t make your life, or others’ lives, better, even if it made for better entertainment than The Apprentice (and what wouldn’t)?

Recommendation: Hope for the best and stock up on canned food.

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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