I won’t be voting for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in November. I won’t be voting for his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, either. I’m not sure who I’ll vote for, but I’m sure it won’t be either of those two. Still, I try to be fair-minded, and in my opinion Trump doesn’t completely deserve the hits he’s taking over two recent stories.

Story #1: According to Newsweek, one of Trump’s companies (Trump Hotels) violated the US government’s embargo on Cuba in 1998, reimbursing nearly $70,000 in expenses to two consultants who visited the island nation on the company’s behalf without permission from the Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Story #2: According to the New York Times, Trump declared $916 million in losses on his 1995 federal income tax return. Depending on how much he earned in subsequent years, it’s possible that nearly two decades passed before he had to pay income tax again.

If not for one thing, Story #1 would improve my opinion of Trump dramatically. The US embargo on Cuba is an evil law which has helped keep the tyrannical Castro regime in power for half a century. Anyone who violates it is doing a heroic deed, striking a blow for freedom and for the Cuban people.

Unfortunately, Trump is inconsistent on this point. He recently stated an intention to “cancel” the progress US president Barack Obama has made toward opening up relations between the US and Cuba.

Story #2 also has an up side and a down side. I’m all for anyone and everyone avoiding every dime of tax possible, by any means they can find, legal or not. A dollar spent, saved or invested in the private sector is a good thing. A dollar given to the federal government is, at best, a dollar set on fire and flushed down the toilet. More usually, that dollar is used to actively harm the American economy and endanger American freedoms.

Unfortunately, Trump’s tax proposals don’t include repeal of the income tax. They tinker around the edges of the tax system, supposedly resulting in across-the-board cuts, but in a complicated enough way that it’s really hard to tell.

Bottom line: I heartily approve of the two things Trump is alleged to have done. Unfortunately, as a presidential candidate, he resembles Hillary Clinton in one significant respect: They both regard inconvenient laws as applicable only to the little people, not to wealthy and important political figures like themselves.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) 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

• “Two Things That Don’t Really Bother Me About Trump, Two Things That Do,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 10/04/16
• “Two Things That Don’t Really Bother Me About Trump, Two Things That Do,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 10/06/16
• “Two sides to two Trump stories,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Queens Examiner [New York City], 10/18/16
• “Two sides to two Trump stories,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Queens Ledger [New York City], 10/18/16
• “Two sides to two Trump stories,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Forest Hills/Rego Park New York Times, 10/18/16
• “Two sides to two Trump stories,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Greenpoint, New York Star, 10/18/16
• “Two sides to two Trump stories,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Brooklyn, New York Downtown Star, 10/18/16

On September 30, a federal judge threw a new wrench into Wisconsin’s voter ID law, ordering an investigation into whether the state’s Division of Motor Vehicles employees properly implemented measures to ensure availability of identity documents to prospective voters. Those employees seem to caught in the middle, torn between assisting the disproportionately African-American poor in getting “documented” on one hand, and fulfilling Republican politicians’ aims of suppressing black voter turnout on the other. Cue world’s smallest violin.

At one time — as late as the mid-1990s — conservative Republicans claimed to oppose “national ID” schemes and other intrusive government measures. Then they discovered that such schemes could be used to their own political advantage. They’ve been trying to turn the United States in to a variant of the Soviet Union’s old “internal passport” regime ever since, partly in the name of “fighting terrorism” and partly in the name of fighting “voter fraud.”

Both claims are dumb, but the “voter fraud” claim is particularly weird. It wasn’t until the 1980s that all 50 all states even offered photo driver’s licenses, let alone required photo ID to vote. Somehow America managed to elect 40 presidents without everyone showing photos of themselves to bureaucrats on demand. Now for some reason not carrying an unflattering picture of yourself in your wallet is  suddenly an existential threat to the Republic. Or at least to the Republicans.

Is voter fraud common? It’s hard say. For one thing, not all vote fraud is voter fraud. There are lots of ways to fake votes. Only some of those ways involve the retail use of false voter credentials. I’m not going to say that kind of thing never takes place, but by its nature it’s a lot more complicated, burdensome and vulnerable to exposure than other methods. Like, for example, stuffing extra ballots in the box after the polls have closed and attributing those votes to to voters who didn’t actually show up.

The only recent case of voter fraud I personally remember is that of one Todd Akin of St. Louis County, Missouri, who got caught lying about his address in 2011 so that he could continue voting at his old polling place instead of admitting he had moved. He wasn’t African-American, though. He was white. And he was a Republican congressman. For some reason the Republicans I’ve talked about voter fraud with haven’t shown much interest in discussing that particular case. Go figure.

Perhaps instead of constantly seeking out new ways to make voting difficult so that people of color can’t vote for the “wrong” politicians, Republicans should turn back toward the limited government rhetoric they used to at least pretend to believe. But then, they never really did believe it, did they?

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) 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

• “Papers, Please: Polling Place Edition,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 10/01/16
• “Papers, Please: Polling Place Edition,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 10/03/16
• “Papers, Please: Polling Place Edition,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Pahrump Valley, Nevada Times, 10/05/16
• “Papers, Please: Polling Place Edition,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Key West: The Newspaper [Florida], 10/07/16

Amnesty International’s mission is “to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated.” Unsurprisingly, the organization’s latest report collects “first-hand testimony of survivors, court documents, medical records and various other forms of evidence relating to 74 cases of torture” in Thailand and urges that country’s legislature and military government to follow through on their claimed commitments to bring an end to the practice.

After Amnesty staff flew into Bangkok for the report’s official release, the regime threatened them with arrest for “visa violations” if the ceremony took place. Apparently the junta, which has ruled the country since a 2014 coup, is unfamiliar with the “Streisand Effect.” Their threats ensured that Amnesty’s report received more global attention on the morning of its release than it would likely otherwise have received altogether.

Among those who should take notice are American taxpayers, who fork over billions of dollars in direct and indirect military aid to the junta forces — weapons, cash, the positive cash flow associated with large US-sponsored military exercises like Cobra Gold, and the putative shade of a US “security umbrella.”

American law is clear on the subject of such aid. Per 22 US Code § 2378d, (“Limitation on assistance to security forces,” better known as the Leahy Law), “No assistance shall be furnished under this chapter or the Arms Export Control Act … to any unit of the security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of State has credible information that such unit has committed a gross violation of human rights.”

Surely 74 cases of torture constitute such a gross violation — as does threatening human rights activists with arrest for talking about those cases of torture. Yet US military aid has continued to flow to the junta, albeit at a reduced rate for a short time.

As a libertarian, I oppose all US foreign aid for military purposes or any others. The only way the US government can give away that money is to first steal it from Americans (or borrow at interest on the promise to steal it later). Individuals who want to support the Thai junta should write those checks themselves instead of mugging the rest of us.

But failing that, it seems to me that the US government can AT LEAST stop throwing cash at torturers. It’s not just a good idea. It’s the law.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) 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

• “US Military Aid: Thai-ed to Torture,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 09/28/16
• “US Military Aid: Thai-ed to Torture,” by Thomas L. Knapp, CounterPunch, 09/29/16
• “US military aid: Thai-ed to torture,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Claremont, New Hampshire Eagle Times, 09/29/16
• “US Military Aid: Thai-ed to Torture,” by Thomas L. Knapp,  Key West: The Newspaper [Florida], 09/30/16
• “US Military Aid: Thai-ed to Torture,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 10/04/16
• “U.S. Military Aid: Thai-ed to torture,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Sonoran News [Arizona], 10/04/16
• “Thaied to torture,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Richmond, Virginia Legacy [web and print editions], 11/16/16