So much for gridlock. On September 12, the US House of Representatives proved that its members can in fact reach across the aisle to find common ground. On taxes? Spending? Foreign policy? Well, no. They agreed, on a voice vote, that they should get to decide what you can or cannot have for lunch.

“The Dog and Cat Meat Trade Prohibition Act of 2018” is exactly what it sounds like: A bill “to prohibit the slaughter of dogs and cats for human consumption.”

What’s up? Is there some pressing public health concern at stake? Is America in the throes of an epidemic of stolen pets ending up in stew pots?

Well, no.  According to the bill’s sponsor, US Representative Vern Buchanan (R-FL), it’s all about “how beloved these animals are for most Americans.” They “provide love and companionship to millions of people.”

In other words, it’s all about making Buchanan, the bill’s co-sponsor, Alcee Hastings (D-FL), and a bunch of other politicians look warm, fuzzy, and caring to the vast majority of Americans whose dinner plans don’t include Manx Cordon Bleu and pulled Shih Tzu sandwiches.

I’m one of those people. I like dogs (I have two) and tolerate cats (my wife and kids have four). That makes it pretty simple for me. I don’t want to eat dog or cat … so I don’t.

As for those who DO want to eat cat and dog, well, in what universe is that any of my business — or, more to the point, the US House of Representatives’?

There are countries on Earth where the slaughter and consumption of certain animals is officially discouraged or even illegal. Two that come to mind are beef (India) and pork (Muslim countries and Israel). My guess is that most Americans think that’s pretty crazy. And yet we have a house of Congress trying to make America like that.

Under House rules, any member can force a counted vote, and one-fifth of the members can compel a recorded vote. That this bill passed on a voice vote means that not one, let alone 87, out of 435 US Representatives objected to passing the equivalent of Sharia or Kosher law right here in America. And it wasn’t even based on any kind of coherent religious/philosophical argument, just “oooh … they’re so cuuuuuuuute.”

And that’s it for this installment of “why we’re better off when Congress doesn’t get anything done than when it does.”

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.

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In a September 10 speech to the Federalist Society, National Security Advisor John Bolton offered “a major announcement on US policy toward the International Criminal Court.” The US government, per Bolton, considers the court “fundamentally illegitimate. … We will not cooperate with the ICC. We will provide no assistance to the ICC. We will not join the ICC.”

Bolton threatened sanctions against the court and those who resort to it or cooperate with it in investigations of war crimes involving the United States or Israel. He also announced the first such sanction, closure of a Palestine Liberation Organization office in Washington in retaliation for the state of Palestine’s referral of charges against Israel for actions in the West Bank and Gaza.

What’s with this sudden interest in the court and its jurisdiction?

Why is Bolton suddenly so concerned with protecting notions of “sovereignty” (he uses the word nine times) that the US government itself routinely ignores at its convenience, claiming global jurisdiction over individuals and organizations outside its own borders in matters ranging from the 17-year “war on terror” to its financial regulation and sanctions schemes?

The answer, in a word: Afghanistan. The regime installed by the US after its 2001 invasion of that country, and maintained in power by the US since then, ratified the Rome Statute in 2003. Crimes committed in Afghanistan since then, regardless of the perpetrators’ nationalities, therefore fall under the ICC’s jurisdiction.

Bolton finds it unconscionable that an American — in particular an American soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, or politician — accused of crimes committed in Afghanistan might be tried in a court Afghanistan’s government has duly accepted the authority of. So much for “sovereignty.”

Bolton wants it both ways. On one hand, the long arm of US law must reach everywhere, be it to a bank in Switzerland, to a hacker’s keyboard in the United Kingdom, or to a battlefield in the Middle East. On the other hand, no foreign arm of law must ever reach a US citizen, regardless of the alleged crime or where it was committed.

Pretty messed up, but there’s a simple solution. All the US government has to do is close its embassies and consulates in, withdraw its troops from, and advise its citizens not to travel to, any of the 120-odd countries which recognize the International Criminal Court as their judicial authority for war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity.

Starting with Afghanistan.

Problem solved.

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

On September 5, the New York Times published an op-ed supposedly written by an anonymous official within president Donald Trump’s administration. The snobbish and self-serving hit piece paints Trump himself as dangerously immature, incompetent, and unstable, while reassuring us that “adults in the room” are working tirelessly to keep his worst impulses in check and save the republic without tedious formalities like invoking the 25th Amendment and removing him from power.

The op-ed itself was a jejeune and mediocre example of a time-honored American pastime, talking smack about one’s boss behind his back. On its own terms, it deserved at most a brief period of public mockery before fading away to something less than an historical footnote.

But then Trump responded swiftly and decisively from his favorite bully pulpit, Twitter.

“TREASON?” he thundered. “If the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!”

In a few short outbursts, Trump managed to confirm all the op-ed’s worst characterizations of his temperament and mental state.

As for the alleged internal “resistance” the anonymous writer claims to belong to, it seems to have fled the scene. Cabinet secretaries quickly lined up to plead their innocence of any involvement, playing  Bukharin to Trump’s Stalin. Who wrote the op-ed? Someone by the name of “Not Me.” An internal administration manhunt (womanhunt?) has allegedly launched to unmask the evil-doer.

Worse, key administration figures, including vice-president Mike Pence and presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway, are doubling down on Trump’s  initial take. They’re softening the risible “treason” line to mere “criminal activity,” but still pushing the line that this whole episode may involve “national security.”

Treason is defined in the US Constitution in terms of levying war on the United States, not in terms of claiming to be your boss’s babysitter. As best I can tell, the rest of federal criminal law is also silent on the media-boosted equivalent of disrespectful water cooler talk.

Nor does any plausible version of “national security” extend to punishing speech of this sort.  Calling the president names and affirming an already widely held impression of his fitness for office may further damage his personal reputation (if that’s even possible), but it doesn’t damage the US as such.

These over-the-top responses from Trump and his loyalists, on the other hand, suggest that the cancerous growth long decried as “the imperial presidency” is metastasizing into even more dangerous form before our very eyes. It’s the Reichstag fire, minus even the excuse of an actual fire.

The 25th Amendment doesn’t sound quite so over the top now as it did a week ago. Unfortunately, its beneficiaries would be the same gang minus their current leader.

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.

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