BOVARD

Friday 3rd July 2009

Today’s Challenge: Find the Non-War Criminals in this Picture!

This image is from a website selling the “Grand Old Gang.”

This type of idolatry is enough to make even a non-Presbyterian cringe.

My 2 Cents on the Tenth Amendment movement

10:16 am | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bovard | dictatorship | Comments: 0

I spoke to Bill Thompson of the Ocala, Florida News earlier this week. He has a very thoughtful article today on the Tenth Amendment movement. Here’s part of his article:

The author James Bovard, whose writings frequently focus on the negative consequences of the growth of the federal government at the expense of individual liberty, noted that these [Tenth Amendment] movements only seem to emerge when Democrats control the White House and Congress.

Many conservatives allowed themselves to be “blinded” by former President Bush, Bovard said. They have awakened to the danger of Washington just since last November, he observed, and appeared unconcerned about the intricacies of the Bill of Rights when their man had his hands on the levers.

Likewise liberals who, for instance, protested President Bush’s funding of faith-based initiatives and groups, should now be faulted for not objecting to a massive infusion of federal cash into the economy, Bovard noted.

“It’s a worthy goal, although I don’t know if it will change the political landscape,” Bovard observed of what the SAC and other groups are trying to do.

A minor clarification: Bill quoted me correctly. But I should have been more precise: the Tenth Amendment movement has been around and a lot of good folks have been pushing the issue. It seems that there is much more attention on the issue now that the Democrats are in the White House.

Boundless Ignorance vs. Self-Government

8:23 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 0

The Future of Freedom Foundation posted online today the following piece from the March issue of Freedom Daily….

Boundless Ignorance versus Self-Government
by James Bovard Freedom Daily March 2009

Modern democracy is based on faith that the people can control what they do not understand. As government has grown by leaps and bounds, “government by the people” has become one of the great fairy tales of our times. As the Founding Fathers feared, citizen ignorance often brings out the worst in their rulers.

Contemporary Americans may be less politically astute than their ancestors. Lord Bryce, a British ambassador to the United States and the author of the classic American Commonwealth, commented on Americans in 1921: “Nobody says, as men so often say in France, Germany, and Italy, ‘I never trouble myself about politics.’” Bryce declared, “Political opinion is better instructed than in Continental Europe because a knowledge of the institutions of the country and their working is more generally diffused here than there through the rank and file of the native population.”

But Bryce’s cheery view may have been out of date by the time his book was published. Millions of Americans were profoundly embittered by the government lies and abuses that permeated the First World War and the Prohibition aftermath. By the mid 1920s, many intellectuals were losing faith in voters. In his 1925 book, Public Opinion, Walter Lippman commented that the typical citizen “gives but a little of his time to public affairs, has but a casual interest in facts and but a poor appetite for theory.” But the political theorists completely ignored this basic limitation. Lippman complained that civics textbooks implied that to be well-informed, citizens “must have the appetite of an encyclopediast and infinite time ahead of him.”

Most Americans have long been political-knowledge lightweights. U.S. government aid to the Nicaraguan Contras was one of the hottest political issues of the 1980s. But polls showed that most citizens — even those who voiced opinions to pollsters — did not know who the Contras were or where Nicaragua was located in relation to the United States. After the Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Geneva in 1986, fewer than half of Americans polled could name the leader of the Soviet Union. In 1989, only 25 percent of people knew what the FICA deduction on their payroll stub meant — even though the Social Security tax is the heaviest federal tax that most wage earners pay.

The depth of voter ignorance

Shortly after the 1994 congressional elections, only 39 percent of the public knew of the Republican “Contract with America,” even though it was the most prominent issue in a congressional election in decades. A 1995 Washington Post–Harvard University study revealed, “Four in 10 Americans don’t know that the Republicans control Congress; and half either think the Democratic Party is more conservative politically than the GOP or don’t feel they know enough to offer a guess.” The survey also found that “only 26 percent knew the 6-year term of office of a U.S. senator” and less than half the public knew that a member of the House of Representatives is elected to a two-year term.

Almost half of Americans “believe that the President has the power to suspend the Constitution.” Christopher Shea noted in Salon, “On a typical election day, 56% of Americans can’t name a single candidate in their own district, for any office.”

Voter ignorance was a key factor in the 2000 presidential election — and not just in Florida. The 2000 election was determined by the weather, according to an analysis by Princeton political scientists Christopher Aachen and Larry Bartels. They analyzed climatic readings from 1895 to the present and concluded that “wet or dry conditions in a typical state and year cost the incumbent party seven-tenths of a percentage point, while ‘extreme’ droughts or wet spells cost incumbents about 1.5 percentage points.” Aachen and Bartels observed, “Voters responded to climatic distress in 2000 — as they have repeatedly throughout the past century — by punishing the incumbent government at the polls.” Aachen and Bartels concluded, “Real voters often have only a vague, more or less primitive understanding of the connections (if any) between incumbent politicians’ actions and their own pain or pleasure.”

During 2000, the University of Michigan’s National Election Survey conducted a comprehensive survey of Americans’ political knowledge. George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin analyzed the results and found that only 55 percent knew that Janet Reno was the attorney general, only 15 percent knew the name of any candidate for the House of Representatives from their congressional district, only 11 percent could identify William Rehnquist as the chief justice of the United States, and only 9 percent knew that Trent Lott was the Senate majority leader.

Surveys of people’s knowledge of names, titles, or job descriptions do not reveal whether they actually comprehend what government is doing. To expect that knowing the length of a Senate term or the names of Supreme Court justices makes voters competent is like expecting that knowing that cars have four wheels is enough to avoid being conned by a car mechanic. Basic knowledge might aid one in knowing where in the phone book to look to contact a government office, but in an era when government policies and interventions are proliferating like mosquitoes, a few factoids are not enough.

Americans possess far greater knowledge of popular culture than of politics and government. Ten times more Americans knew the name of the host of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? than knew the name of the speaker of the House of Representatives in 2000. In the 1992 election, “Eighty-six per cent of likely voters knew that the Bushes’ dog’s name was Millie; only fifteen per cent knew that Bush and Clinton both favored the death penalty. It’s not that people know nothing. It’s just that politics is not what they know,” Louis Menand noted in the New Yorker.

Understanding government

While the size of government is mushrooming, Americans’ understanding of how government works may be shrinking. Michael Delli Carpini, dean of the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, noted that “despite an unprecedented expansion in public education, a communications revolution that has shattered national and international boundaries, and the increasing relevance of national and international events and policies to the daily lives of Americans, citizens appear no more informed about politics today than they were half a century ago.” More years in government schools have done little or nothing to help citizens understand how government operates. It would be naive to expect politically controlled education to enlighten people about the perils of political power. But, because public schools are largely a sacred cow, this conflict of interest is ignored or rarely discussed in polite company.

Many people believed that the soaring popularity of political talk radio would boost voter literacy. However, “exposure to these programs is not significantly related to even elementary tests of political information,” according to a Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media examination of the knowledge of regular talk-show listeners.

The dulling of American minds

Ignorance is thriving in part because Americans are reading less. A National Endowment for the Arts survey estimated that “the number of non-reading adults increased by more than 17 million between 1992 and 2002.” Between 1992 and 2002, the number of adults who read a daily paper declined from six in ten to four in ten. Though reading books and newspapers is no guarantee of political literacy, people are far more likely to be able to follow and remember a complex argument when they read about it than when they see politicians blathering bromides on television.

In 1835 Alexis de Tocqueville noted in Democracy in America that “to persuade people to take an interest in their own affairs is, I know well, an arduous enterprise. It would often be easier to get them interested in the details of court etiquette than in the repair of their common dwelling.” Unfortunately, insofar as people do pay attention to politics, it is increasingly focused on the day-to-day utterances or behavior of the presidents — the triumph of the “Great Leader Democracy.” But attention is sporadic even when the topic is titillating. For instance, in 1998 and early 1999, there was vastly more attention given to what Clinton did to an intern than to what the federal government was doing to the American people. And even then, “only about a third of the American public followed media accounts of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal ‘very closely.’” The scandal probably convinced many people that simply getting a religion-invoking, happily married man in the Oval Office would restore decency in Washington.

Long-term deterioration of American political rhetoric is also dulling Americans’ minds. Presidential addresses have become little more than “pontification cum anecdotalism.” University of Tulsa political scientist Elvin Lim concluded, “The urge to dumb down has been a rare constant in the two hundred year history of the presidency, persisting in spite of the different personalities and ideologies of the 43 [sic] men who have held the office.” Lim noted that the last century has seen “the intensified de-intellectualization of American presidential rhetoric, which in its modern mode has exhibited an increased tendency to avoid references to cognitive and evaluative processes and states.” Presidents have made themselves far more prominent in their official rhetoric, shifting public attention from the government to the supreme leader. Lim found that “keywords of typical republican rhetoric have become unpopular, with references to the once honored words like republic, citizen, character, duty, and virtuous falling significantly.” Voters may understand government power less because the topic is vanishing from official addresses: “References to legal and judicial terms have taken a sharp fall since around William Howard Taft, as have references to the tools and forms of formal power.” Instead, the message is that the president cares about the voter.

The only way that massive ignorance of public policy will not subvert meaningful democracy is for politicians somehow to know and respect people’s wishes — even if the people themselves are ignorant of their own will. Voter ignorance is irrelevant to democracy only if politicians are automatically all-wise and benevolent. But no such class of politicians has been discovered to exist outside of Washington novels and high-school civics textbooks.

James Bovard is the author of Attention Deficit Democracy [2006] as well as The Bush Betrayal [2004], Lost Rights [1994] and Terrorism and Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice and Peace to Rid the World of Evil (Palgrave-Macmillan, September 2003) and serves as a policy advisor for The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Wednesday 1st July 2009

“Federal agents hunt for guns, one house at a time”

11:19 am | Attention Deficit Democracy | Comments: 1

With headlines like this, why does the media wonder why so many gun owners are paranoid?

This headline is from a Houston Chronicle article about federal agents going door to door seeking information on guns that might have been transferred to Mexico. This front page article looks like it could have been written by government press agents.

Tuesday 30th June 2009

Mary Lou Forbes, RIP

2:44 pm | Attention Deficit Democracy | Comments: 0

Mary Lou Forbes, the Commentary editor of the Washington Times, passed away on Saturday less than 2 weeks after being diagnosed with breast cancer. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1959 for her coverage of school desegregation fights in Virginia.

Mary Lou was one of the most pleasant editors I have dealt with. She was open to hard-hitting articles that would make other editors flinch. She especially enjoyed detailed exposes of how government bureaucracies were running amok.

I last spoke to her on June 10. She sounded in good spirits - with her usual combination of Southern charm and natural smarts. Her rare combination of grace, toughness, and sound judgment will not soon be equaled in Washington.

REAL ID and the Real Danger of Government

8:09 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 0

The Campaign for Liberty posted online an article I wrote today on the lessons of REAL ID.

Funny to think how, only a few years ago, opponents of REAL ID were tagged as paranoid….

Real ID: A Real Warning on the Danger of Government
By James Bovard

The REAL ID Act may be on the verge of receiving its final coffin nails. Unfortunately, the Obama administration is pushing a replacement bill that poses many of the same threats as REAL ID. The history of REAL ID should inspire friends of freedom to once again vigorously oppose any and every federal grab for their personal information.

The feds had sought legislation to create national ID cards in the 1990s but were rebuffed by a Republican Congress. But, after 9/11, “everything changed” — at least in Washington. Regardless of the reasons why the CIA and FBI failed to stop the hijackers, the solution was far more snooping and the potential creation of hundreds of millions of dossiers on American citizens. Almost overnight, it became widely accepted that the government must have unlimited powers to search anywhere and everywhere for enemies of freedom. The worse the government’s failure to protect Americans, the further it permitted itself to intrude.

There was scant opposition when the House of Representatives initially considered REAL ID in early 2005. The Senate unanimously approved the bill, attached as a rider to an appropriations bill for military spending. Rep. Ron Paul was practically the lone Republican sounding the alarm. At the time the bill passed, he warned, “This REAL ID Act establishes a massive, centrally-coordinated database of highly personal information about American citizens: at a minimum their name, date of birth, place of residence, Social Security number, and physical characteristics.”

REAL ID provided a blank check for the feds to demand more information at any time in the future. The new law granted “open-ended authority to the Secretary of Homeland Security to require biometric information on IDs in the future. This means your harmless looking driver’s license could contain a retina scan, fingerprints, DNA information, or radio frequency technology,” as congressman Paul warned.

Back in 2005, it was not fashionable in Washington to be afraid of federal surveillance. Luckily, in the subsequent years, civil liberties activists have raised Cain around the nation. More than half of all the state legislatures have passed resolutions or laws restricting REAL ID’s bite in their state. But in order to understand what the feds may try next, it is important to consider how REAL ID was sold, how it was expanded, and why it remains a threat.

At the time REAL ID was being promoted, advocates of federal surveillance claimed that national identification cards were necessary to make Americans safe. In reality, national ID cards would do far more to control than to protect Americans. Savvy foreign terrorists could find ways to evade the requirements for such cards — the same way that they easily evaded ludicrous airport security systems on September 11, 2001.

REAL ID was intended to greatly increase federal levers over the movement and lives of Americans. In 2008, Homeland Security czar Michael Chertoff announced that Americans who lived in states who had not revised their drivers licenses to meet REAL ID mandates could be banned from boarding an airplane within the United States. Since the Transportation Security Administration was part of Chertoff’s fiefdom, he could snap his fingers and the TSA would block anyone who did not present the proper papers from catching a flight. (Chertoff’s attempt to bludgeon state legislatures into submission backfired).

If the feds had been upfront about claiming a prerogative to arbitrarily ban any American from air travel at the time the bill was initially considered, far more people would have protested before REAL ID became law. But this is typical of the “camel’s nose in the tent” style of surveillance.

REAL ID was also used to railroad through a vast expansion of the definition of terrorism. As Rep. Paul noted, the law “re-defines ‘terrorism’ in broad new terms that could well include members of firearms rights and anti-abortion groups, or other such groups as determined by whoever is in power at the time. There are no prohibitions against including such information in the database as information about a person’s exercise of First Amendment rights or about a person’s appearance on a registry of firearms owners.”

Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) complained that REAL ID “defined the term ‘terrorist activity’ so broadly that it basically covers anyone who has ever used a firearm.” REAL ID’s expansion of the definition of terrorist activity is especially perilous considering the hostility that some congressmen have towards gun owners.

And the danger is compounded because some Homeland Security Department officials have already labeled individuals who invoke the Constitution or support candidates like Ron Paul as radicals and extremists. This past April, a Homeland Security report entitled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Environment Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment” defined as “right wing extremism” groups and individuals who are “mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely.” Thus, anyone who firmly believes in the Tenth Amendment could be classified as a threat to public safety. Once the groundwork is laid, the feds could exploit REAL ID to block people to travel to political protests. (The federal No Fly list was exploited in a similar fashion in 2002 to block Wisconsin nuns from traveling to an antiwar protest in Washington).

Now, Obama’s Homeland Security chief, Janet Napolitano, is urging Congress to enact what is portrayed as “REAL ID-Lite” — the PASS Act (Providing for Additional Security in States’ Identification Act of 2009).

But this bill contains many of the same risks as the REAL ID. And Napolitano is promoting requiring state drivers’ licenses to contain RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chips with unique numbers for each individual. Katherine Albrecht, author of the bestseller Spychips, warns that this scheme could make it easy for the government to identify anyone who attends a gun show or an antiwar rally. Albrecht asks: “What happens to all those people when a government operator carrying a reading device makes a circuit of the event? They could download all those unique ID numbers and link them.” And it would be a small step from this to putting all the names on watch lists.

But PASS ID sounds more innocuous than REAL ID. However, from another perspective, it sounds reminiscent of high school - when students had to get a hall pass from their teacher before being permitted to step out of the classroom.

Many REAL ID advocates insisted that there was no risk of the government using the new law as a launching pad to go further into people’s lives. But the experience with other federal surveillance efforts proves that things can get far more worse than even paranoids suspect. In the 1980s, when cell phones became popular, many people saw them as a way for people to enjoy a new freedom and mobility. But, in 1999, the Federal Communications Commission bowed to FBI demands and required that all new cellular telephones be de facto homing devices. Cell phones must now include components that allow law enforcement to determine the precise location of any caller using the device. As Electronic Design magazine noted, “Unlike the location feature being created for 911 emergency services, this capability will apply to all calls and users won’t be able to turn it off.”

There was no reason to pass Real ID, and there is no reason to enact a replacement after state legislatures shot REAL ID to pieces. Nothing has happened since 2005 to make the government more trustworthy or to make liberty less valuable. It is vital that we never permit our rulers to treat all Americans like criminal suspects all the time. The government’s incompetence at protecting Americans must not be converted into a political entitlement to destroy all privacy.

tagline: James Bovard is the author of Attention Deficit Democracy (Palgrave, 2006), The Bush Betrayal (Palgrave, 2004), Terrorism and Tyranny (Palgrave, 2003), Freedom in Chains (St. Martin’s 1999), Lost Rights (St. Martin’s 1994), and other books. His website is at JimBovard.com

Friday 26th June 2009

Obama’s Ludicrous Declaration on Torture Day

7:22 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 2

Alas, my idealistic hopes have once again been crushed like a bug.

President Obama issued his statement on the United Nations International Day in Support of Torture Victims.

I wonder if Obama’s ghostwriter was wearing hip boots when this statement was put together.

The opening of his statement could have been recycled from the George W. Bush years: “Torture is contrary to the founding documents of our country, and the fundamental values of our people.”

Obama declares that torture “surrenders the moral authority that must form the basis for just leadership. That is why the United States must never engage in torture, and must stand against torture wherever it takes place.” (He neglected to mention that the U.S. is also obliged to never release any photos documenting torture - unless the torture was committed by foreign governments who were not allied to the U.S.).

Obama declared: “My administration is committed to taking concrete actions against torture and to address the needs of its victims… My budget request for fiscal year 2010 includes continued support for international and domestic groups working to rehabilitate torture victims.”

Well now ain’t that just dandy.

Spending U.S. tax dollars for private groups aiding torture victims supposedly compensates for Obama’s coverup of the evidence of U.S. government torture and his de facto pardon of all the torturers and torture policymakers.

Here is the full text:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 26, 2009

Statement by President Barack Obama on United Nations International Day in Support of Torture Victims

Twenty-five years ago, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention Against Torture, and twenty-two years ago this very day, the Convention entered into force. The United States’ leading role in the negotiation of the Convention and its subsequent ratification and implementation enjoyed strong bipartisan support. Today, we join the international community in reaffirming unequivocally the principles behind that Convention, including the core principle that torture is never justified.

Torture violates United States and international law as well as human dignity. Torture is contrary to the founding documents of our country, and the fundamental values of our people. It diminishes the security of those who carry it out, and surrenders the moral authority that must form the basis for just leadership. That is why the United States must never engage in torture, and must stand against torture wherever it takes place.

My administration is committed to taking concrete actions against torture and to address the needs of its victims. On my third day in office, I issued an executive order that prohibits torture by the United States. My budget request for fiscal year 2010 includes continued support for international and domestic groups working to rehabilitate torture victims.

The United States will continue to cooperate with governments and civil society organizations throughout the international community in the fight to end torture. To this end, I have requested today that the Department of State solicit information from all of our diplomatic missions around the world about effective policies and programs for stopping torture and assisting its victims so that we and our civil society partners can learn from what others have done. I applaud the courage, compassion and commitment of the many people and organizations doing this vitally important work.

“Obama and the Torturers” - Portuguese version

7:09 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 0

Murilo Leme kindly translated my latest torture piece into Portuguese.

Comemorem o Dia da Tortura Punindo os Torturadores
por James Bovard, 23 de junho de 2009

Desde 1997, todo dia 26 de junho tem sido formalmente reconhecido como o Dia Internacional de Apoio a Vítimas da Tortura - International Day of Support for Victims of Torture. Líderes políticos de todo o mundo aproveitam a ocasião para proclamar sua oposição à barbárie.

Em 26 de junho de 2003, o Presidente George W. Bush orgulhosamente declarou: “Os Estados Unidos estão comprometidos com a eliminação da tortura em escala mundial, e estamos liderando essa luta por meio do exemplo. Conclamo todos os governos a juntarem-se aos Estados Unidos e à comunidade de nações que se pautam pela lei para proibirmos, investigarmos e movermos processo contra todos os atos de tortura e para tomarmos a iniciativa de impedir outras formas de punições cruéis e inusitadas.” (more…)

Thursday 25th June 2009

Illegal Teenage Strip Search as Harmless Error

3:45 pm | Attention Deficit Democracy | Comments: 1

The Supreme Court ruled today that Arizona school officials violated the law and constitutional rights when they forcibly strip-searched a 13 year old girl to see if she was hiding painkillers in her underwear.

It is good that the Court did not sprinkle its holy water on the search. But the court’s refusal to hold the assistant principal who ordered the search personally liable makes a mockery of its objections to the search. The case is being sent back to lower courts to assess whether any damages should be awarded. Yet, the court’s decision granting immunity to all school officials involved may be far more important than its mild criticism of the search. The fact that taxpayers get whacked for officials’ abuses will have no more effect in curbing illegal school searches than have the taxpayer liability for police brutality suits have curbed rampaging police departments.

Wednesday 24th June 2009

On Jamaican Radio Tonight (6/24) at 7:30 EDT

2:16 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 0

I will be on the Evening Edition, a radio discussion program in Kingston, Jamaica, with host Lloyd D’Aguilar, this evening from 7:30 to 7:45 Eastern time. We will be discussing US torture in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

You can listen live at www.newstalk93fm.com

Best Definition of a Tax Audit

10:28 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 2

This is a perfect definition for an IRS audit - at least on the corporate side.

I am mystified by the quip in the last panel, but the line in the middle panel deserves to live in infamy.

Tuesday 23rd June 2009

Celebrate Torture Day by Punishing Torturers

The Future of Freedom Foundation is shotgunning out this email today…..

Celebrate Torture Day by Punishing Torturers
by James Bovard, June 23, 2009

Since 1997, every June 26 has been formally recognized as the International Day of Support for Victims of Torture. Political leaders around the globe take the occasion to proclaim their opposition to barbarism.

On June 26, 2003, President George W. Bush proudly declared: “The United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture, and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment.”

This was one of the most fraudulent assertions since 1936, when the new Soviet constitution guaranteed Soviet citizens complete freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly. But this “perfect constitution” did nothing to prevent Stalin from sending millions of people to their deaths in the Gulag and in front of firing squads.

Similarly, Bush’s anti-torture proclamation did nothing to stop his administration from formalizing perhaps the most brutal abuses in modern American history. Top Bush administration officials created twisted rationales to authorize simulated drowning, “walling” (throwing detainees up against a wall, repeated ad nauseam), sleep deprivation (as long as it did not last more than 11 days), head slappings, and other methods to shatter people’s will and resistance.

The fact that the Bush administration engaged in torture in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo, and secret prison sites around the world is now no longer in dispute. Unfortunately, the Obama administration is rapidly become complicit in Bush torture crimes.

President Obama is vigorously opposing proposals for a “truth commission” to investigate and expose the extent of U.S. interrogation abuses in the post-9/11 era.

After Obama promised not to interfere with a federal court ruling ordering the release of hundreds of photos of detainee abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan, he reversed himself last month and promised U.S. senators that he would do everything he could to assure that Americans never see the pictures.

Obama’s Justice Department helped sway a federal appeals court to decree that top Bush administration officials have zero personal liability to British citizens allegedly tortured at Guantanamo. (At the same time, the Justice Department has trumpeted its role in convicting football star Michael Vick after he was accused of torturing dogs.)

CIA chief Leon Panetta is trying to persuade a federal judge not to suppress detailed information from almost a hundred videotapes of CIA “extreme interrogation” sessions. Panetta is fretting that disclosing the official documents would “constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy” of CIA torturers.

President Obama will probably make the usual huff-and-puff proclamation against torture on June 26. But as long as he is protecting the torturers and torture policymakers, any anti-torture assertion he makes will be worth less than a plug nickle.

Obama should either enforce the law or formally call for Congress to withdraw from the United Nations Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. And if he chooses to follow that path, he should also urge Congress to repeal the 1996 Anti-Torture Act.

And to be honest with the American people about the nature of the government that rules them, Obama should demand a constitutional convention. If torture is de facto legal in America, the Eighth Amendment — which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment — must be repealed.

The Fifth Amendment will also need the ax, since it declares that no one “shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” The fact that both the Bush administration and the Obama administration are willing to use tortured confessions to prosecute so-called enemy combatants is proof positive that it is time to expunge this relic of bygone fastidiousness.

It is up to Obama to show that he takes U.S. law more seriously than Stalin took the 1936 Soviet constitution. If Obama denounces torture at the same time he is protecting the torturers, then Obama deserves be hooted off the national stage.

Friday 19th June 2009

Washington Post Dumps Best Columnist - Froomkin

11:07 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 4

The Washington Post yesterday terminated the “White House Watch” column written by Dan Froomkin. Froomkin did far better and more courageous coverage of the torture scandal than did any other Post columnist or editorial writer. (Washington Post cartoonist Tom Toles also did magnificent work on this score). Froomkin was off to a strong start on the Obama administraiton, highlighting the new president’s hypocrisy and abandonment of principles. A pink slip was Froomkin’s reward.

Froomkin recognized that cravenness is destroying the newspaper and media businesses:

“If mainstream-media political journalists don’t start calling bullshit more often, then we do risk losing our primacy — if not to the comedians then to the bloggers.

“I still believe that no one is fundamentally more capable of first-rate bullshit-calling than a well-informed beat reporter - whatever their beat. We just need to get the editors, or the corporate culture, or the self-censorship – or whatever it is – out of the way”

Apparently, as long as top Washington Post editors can keep reaping the rewards of publishing BS, that is all that matters. And Washington Post honchos will no longer need to worry about complaints from The Powers That Be about Froomkin pointing out their lies and betrayals.

Glenn Greenwald has an excellent column on Froomkin’s firing here.

Thursday 18th June 2009

Divine Analogies for Self-Pitying Republicans

9:32 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 3

Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) sent a twitter message yesterday declaring that “Iranian twitter activity similar to what we did in House last year when Republicans were shut down in the House.”

Gracious - politicians face a few procedural hurdles and then claim that they suffered the equivalent of having their heads busted by goons with batons?

Twitter users responded with a deluge of analogies, proving that they felt Hoekstra’s pain. Talking Points Memo plucked some of the best lines:

*My neighbor stopped me to talk today. Now I know what it is like to be questioned by the Basij!

*Someone walked in on me while I was in the bathroom. Reminded me of Pearl Harbor.

*Walked out onto Constitution Ave in D.C. and was almost hit by a taxi. Reminded me of Tienanmen Square.

*I spilled some lukewarm coffee on myself just now, which is like being boiled in oil

*I ran through the sprinklers this morning, claimed solidarity with victims of Hurricane Katrina

* I Had to move all my stuff to a new office w/o a corner view. Now i know what the Trail of Tears was like.

Wednesday 17th June 2009

PODCAST NOW ONLINE - Brian Wilson Show interview today

10:27 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 3

I will be on the Brian Wilson radio show today from @ 5:05 pm to 5:30. We will have a good ol’ time ragging on government surveillance and other damn outrages.

Listen Live here. (He is on Toledo’s WSPD - 1370 on the AM dial).
****
UPDATE: The podcast of the interview is now available here.

Harry Browne, RIP & New Books Available

10:12 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 2

This would have been author and freedom fighter Harry Browne’s 76th birthday. Harry (who passed away in 2006) did great work for decades and he helped awake and inspire many people to the value of freedom and the perils of political saviors. His work on surviving economic nosedives is more relevant now than it has been since the 1970s.

Harry’s widow, Pamela Wolfe Browne, created an excellent website tribute to Harry here. She has also made available several new e-books of Harry’s writings, both published and unpublished. They are available at the same web page.

Pamela also has a personal message posted today at DownsizerDC.org here.

The last time I saw Harry was at the LP National Convention in Atlanta in 2004. He came up behind me and put a hand on my bald head. It was a hoot - like getting a priest’s blessings.

I much appreciated Harry’s fighting spirit and his fine sense of humor.

Tuesday 16th June 2009

Are You a “Low-Level Terrorist”?

The Pentagon is teaching soldiers and bureaucrats that people who attend public protests are guilty of “low-level terrorism.”

As a California political blog notes, “Among the multiple-choice questions included in its Level 1 Antiterrorism Awareness training course – an annual training requirement for all DoD personnel that is fulfilled through web-based instruction – the DoD asks the following: “Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorist activity?” To answer correctly, the examinee must select “protests.”

The ACLU is raising hell on this one - or at least writing a letter to the government.

I still believe that we have not yet seen the tip of the iceberg of federal efforts to classify political protests or opposition to the government as terrorism.

Friday 12th June 2009

Perverse Reading Habits of U.S. Attorneys: Shredding Privacy, Except for Torturers

From the Las Vegas Review Journal:
US Attorney subpoenas Las Vegas Review-Journal for info about posters to a web-page story.

“On May 26 the Review-Journal published an article about an ongoing federal tax evasion trial. The primary defendant, Las Vegan Robert Kahre, stands accused of tax fraud for using the rather inventive argument that he could pay people in U.S. minted gold and silver coins based on their precious metal value but for tax purposes use their face value, which is many times less.

The story was posted on our Web site. When last I checked nearly 100 comments were appended to it, running the gamut from the lucid to the ludicrous.

This past week the newspaper was served with a grand jury subpoena from the U.S. attorney’s office demanding that we turn over all records pertaining to those postings, including “full name, date of birth, physical address, gender, ZIP code, password prompts, security questions, telephone numbers and other identifiers … the IP address,” et (kitchen sink) cetera.”

+++++
Apparently, anyone who comments on an article that includes criticism of the IRS automatically forfeits all their privacy rights.

Considering this story, and the piece on Leon Panetta asking a federal judge to hush up the identifies of CIA agents who carried out “extreme interrogation” — the only people entitled to privacy any more are torturers following government orders.

Torture Coverup in Portuguese

8:36 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 1

Murilo Leme kindly translated my piece on the Obama torture coverup into Portuguese.
I am told that sarcasm works better in Portuguese, so the humor may work better in the translation than the original.

XXXXX
O Mais Recente Cambalacho de Encobrimento da Tortura
por James Bovard, 10 de junho de 2009
A administração Obama parece cada vez mais empenhada em encobrir os piores crimes da era Bush. Na segunda-feira, o chefe da CIA Leon Panetta objetou formalmente ao juiz federal Alvin Hellerstein, que cogitava de liberar informações detalhadas a respeito de 92 sessões de tortura de detidos, pela CIA, gravadas em videoteipe.

Panetta afirmou que liberando-se a informação escrita, “pode-se esperar resultem danos excepcionalmente graves à segurança nacional, informando nossos inimigos a respeito do que sabemos a respeito deles, e quando e, em alguns casos, como obtivemos a inteligência da qual estávamos de posse.”

Panetta fala como se fosse a única pessoa da Terra que ainda não sabe que o governo dos Estados Unidos já efetivamente admitiu ter usado tortura em detidos para extrair confissões, verdadeiras, falsas, ou de qualquer outra espécie.

O chefe da CIA disse ao juiz que “a revelação de detalhes explícitos de interrogatórios específicos” dotaria a al-Qaeda “de propaganda que ela poderia usar para recrutar e para levantar fundos.” Panetta descreveu referida informação como “munição pronta para ser usada.”

E quem fabricou essa munição? A CIA e as autoridades da administração Bush que geraram opiniões jurídicas autorizando crimes de guerra. Contudo, de acordo com Panetta, a CIA é a vítima. Panetta advertiu que revelar os documentos “constituiria clara invasão sem mandado da vida privada pessoal” dos empregados da CIA envolvidos no processo de “interrogatório extremado”.

Aparentemente, as pessoas que infligem tortura cumprindo ordens do governo dos Estados Unidos têm direito à preservação de seu bom nome, independentemente de quantas pessoas inocentes tenham matado. É irônico ver tal solicitude pelos direitos dos indivíduos que podem ter violado a Convenção de Genebra. Talvez os direitos de vida privada sejam os únicos direitos que o governo ainda respeita. Todavia, as únicas pessoas com direito à vida privada são aquelas que cumpriram ordens e cometeram crimes hediondos.

Panetta também afirmou que seu pedido de supressão de toda evidência “não era, de modo algum, motivado por desejo de impedir constrangimento para o governo dos Estados Unidos ou a CIA, nem de suprimir evidência referente a qualquer conduta ilegal.”

Panetta esqueceu-se de acrescentar que venderia a Ponte do Brooklin - Brooklin Bridge ao juiz por apenas $29,95 (vinte e nove dólares e noventa e cinco centavos).

As objeções da administração Obama a permitir que os estadunidenses saibam a verdade a respeito dos abusos da CIA são apenas o último capítulo de um encobrimento que já durou a maior parte deste novo século.

Em 2003, a União Estadunidense de Liberdades Civis - American Civil Liberties Union - ACLU(*) deu entrada num pedido baseado na Lei de Liberdade de Informação - Freedom of Information Act(**) solicitando acesso a informações a respeito do tratamento de prisioneiros, pelos Estados Unidos, em Iraque, Afeganistão e Baía de Guantánamo. A administração Bush, morrendo de rir da lei federal, rejeitou em grande parte o pedido. Em 15 de setembro de 2004, o Juiz Hellerstein condenou os federais: “Se os documentos forem mais um embaraço do que um segredo, o público deveria saber do tratamento de indivíduos capturados e mantidos presos no exterior por parte de nosso governo.” O juiz ficou indignado com a invocação espúria, pela administração Bush, da “segurança nacional” para negar o fornecimento da informação. Hellerstein deu aos federais prazo fatal de 30 dias para que fornecessem a informação.

(*) http://www.aclu.org/

(**) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_information_act

Os federais, entretanto, na prática ignoraram o prazo fatal de Hellerstein — como fizeram com a maioria dos prazos fatais judiciais fixados no tocante ao escândalo da tortura. Se todas as fotos e todos os memorandos tivessem sido revelados em outubro de 2004, os eleitores poderiam ter inviabilizado a busca de Bush por um segundo mandato.

A mais recente obstrução é especialmente espantosa porque vem de um presidente que prometeu transparência e abertura ao assumir o cargo no início deste ano. Em vez disso, a equipe de Obama está acrisolando uma regra que poderá justificar o encobrimento de qualquer atrocidade do governo.

Jameel Jaffer, diretor do programa de segurança nacional da ACLU, observou que a posição da administração Obama equivale a asseverar que “quanto maior o abuso, mais importante é ele dever permanecer em segredo.” A ACLU merece três vivas por sua batalha de quase seis anos pela verdade a respeito de como os Estados Unidos tratam os detidos.

Só no mês passado a administração Obama cedeu diante das críticas dos conservadores e anunciou que proibiria efetivamente os estadunidenses (e todas as demais pessoas do mundo) de verem centenas de fotos de abusos de detidos por forças dos Estados Unidos no Iraque e no Afeganistão. Obama potencializou essa contumélia mediante apoiar uma monstruosidade legislativa conhecida como a Lei de Proteção de Registros Fotográficos de Detidos - Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act. Esse projeto de lei, de iniciativa do Senador Joe Lieberman (D-Conn) e do Senador Lindsay Graham (R-SC), daria ao Secretário de Defesa - Secretary of Defense poder quase ilimitado para suprimir evidência de abusos cometidos pela instituição militar dos Estados Unidos.

Esse cheque em branco de censura em relação aos militares foi aprovado no Senado dos Estados Unidos mas, pela última informação disponível, foi bloqueado na Câmara dos Deputados (graças a membros liberais Democratas).

O escândalo da tortura lança muito mais luz na alma da política estadunidense do que a retórica de qualquer político. Numa cerimônia do Dia de Recordação do Holocausto - Holocaust Remembrance Day no Capitólio dos Estados Unidos em 23 de abril, Obama enfatizou a necessidade de “combater o silêncio, que é o maior de todos os co-conspiradores do mal.” Talvez Obama, como muitas autoridades da administração anterior, acredite que o governo dos Estados Unidos é por definição incapaz de perpetrar o mal.

Num discurso há seis semanas na sede da CIA, Obama declarou: “O que torna os Estados Unidos um país especial, e o que torna vocês especiais, é precisamente o fato de que estamos dispostos a manter nossos valores e ideais mesmo quando isso é difícil.”

Essa é a mesma defesa consistente em “invocar os valores estadunidenses” que o Presidente George W. Bush usou em 2004 e 2005 depois da primeira irrupção do escândalo da tortura. É mergulhar as pessoas na bajulação nacional como substituto para estancar a vergonha nacional. Mas hálito quente não é substituto para fatos concretos.

James Bovard é autor de Democracia de Déficit de Atenção Attention Deficit Democracy (Palgrave, 2006), Terrorismo e Tirania Terrorism and Tyranny (Palgrave, 2003), Direitos Perdidos Lost Rights (St. Martin’s, 1994), e serve como assessor de políticas da Fundação Futuro de Liberdade - The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Murilo Otávio Rodrigues Paes Leme
zqxjkv0@gmail.com
ywkzxj@gmail.com

Thursday 11th June 2009

OBAMA’S I.M.F. TINHORN DICTATOR BAILOUT

10:31 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 2

INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY JUNE 11, 2009
U.S. Bailout Of Tinhorn Dictators Sacrifices Taxpayers On IMF Altar
By JAMES BOVARD

The Obama administration wants to pledge $100 billion in U.S. taxpayers’ money to the International Monetary Fund. This provision is included in an appropriations bill containing supplemental funding for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Luckily, many Republicans and Democrats are vigorously opposing Obama’s effort to sacrifice American taxpayers on an IMF altar.

The IMF is currently bailing out some of the world’s most corrupt regimes. Instead of curing the global downturn, giving the IMF more resources will guarantee more instability, more oppression and bigger losses in the future.

The IMF was created in 1944 to shore up currencies and help nations with temporary balance-of-payment problems. In the decades since the IMF’s founding, global capital markets and fluctuating currency exchange rates have made the IMF a relic. But too many people have gotten rich from IMF largesse to permit the curtain to be closed on this institution.

Actually, the IMF has accomplished many things private markets never could. During the 1970s and 1980s, the IMF was a cheerleader for Third World countries and some communist regimes. The surge in Western lending to such countries helped cause the great debt crisis of the early 1980s.

Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill denounced the IMF and the World Bank in 2002 for driving many poor nations “into a ditch” with excessive lending that governments wasted.

Regardless, the Obama team believes the IMF deserves far more money and power, tripling its war chest to $750 billion from $250 billion.

The U.S. government contributes roughly 20% of the IMF’s capital.

IMF resources are being squandered. Consider some recent bailouts of floundering regimes:

• The IMF just approved a $116 million loan for the government of Tajikistan — even though that government admitted last year that it had brazenly lied to secure previous IMF loans.

• On May 29, the IMF approved a $209 million loan to the government of Kenya — despite previous perennial IMF complaints about pervasive corruption in that country.

• In January, the IMF approved a $2.5 billion loan for the government of Belarus — one of the most oppressive regimes in Europe, and one that retains many Soviet-style economic policies.

• The Ethiopian government received a $50 million loan in January despite its recent brutal oppression of political opposition.

• The Democratic Republic of the Congo will receive $195 million from the IMF — even though that government is rated by Transparency International as one of the 10 most corrupt regimes in the world.

IMF aid allows politicians to entrench themselves and scorn their own people. IMF loans to bad governments are “odious debts” for the people in those nations. The downtrodden masses will be taxed to repay loans that their rulers pocketed, squandered, or used to tighten their fetters.

IMF supporters insist that any increased aid will be used well because the IMF will impose strict conditions on how governments use the largesse. But IMF conditionality is one of the biggest frauds on the international landscape.

Foreign governments continue getting windfalls regardless of how they betray their reform pledges to the IMF. And the IMF often pressures governments to adapt foolish policies that sacrifice the private sector to maximize government revenue.

While Obama proclaimed his devotion to “transparency” in government, the IMF is a secretive organization. The U.S. will be committing $100 billion to a giant black box — and average Americans will never know who reaped the profit of their sacrifice.

The Obama team wants to bloat the IMF in part because it believes that government spending is the magic bullet against the current economic downturn. Supposedly, American taxpayers will benefit from government waste anywhere in the world. But it makes no sense to increase the U.S. budget deficit to allow foreign governments to shovel out more money for every scam under the sun.

Vastly expanding the IMF will make U.S. taxpayers liable for the mistakes and abuses of tinhorn dictators all around the world. Instead of plowing in another $100 billion, the U.S. government should pull the plug on its involvement in the IMF.

Permitting politicians to spend willy-nilly is a fool’s recipe for prosperity.

Bovard is a former World Bank consultant and the author of “Attention Deficit Democracy” (Palgrave, 2006) and eight other books.

Wednesday 10th June 2009

The Latest Torture Coverup Scam

The Future of Freedom Foundation is shotgunning out an oped I wrote on the latest torture coverup. Alas, this subject continues to be hell on idealists.
*****
The Latest Torture Cover-Up Scam
by James Bovard, June 10, 2009

The Obama administration appears increasingly devoted to covering up the worst crimes of the Bush era. On Monday, CIA chief Leon Panetta formally objected to federal judge Alvin Hellerstein, who was considering releasing detailed information on 92 videotaped CIA torture sessions of detainees.

Panetta asserted that releasing the written information “could be expected to result in exceptionally grave damage to the national security by informing our enemies of what we knew about them, and when, and in some instances, how we obtained the intelligence we possessed. ”

Panetta sounds like the only person on Earth who is not aware that the U.S. government has already effectively admitted that it used torture on detainees to squeeze out confessions, true, false, or whatever.

The CIA chief told the judge that the “disclosure of explicit details of specific interrogations” would provide al-Qaeda “with propaganda it could use to recruit and raise funds.” Panetta described the information at issue as “ready-made ammunition.”

And who manufactured this ammunition? The CIA and Bush administration officials who ginned up legal opinions authorizing war crimes. But according to Panetta, the CIA would be the victim. Panetta warned that disclosing the documents would “constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy” of the CIA employees involved in the “extreme interrogation” process.

Apparently, people who inflict torture under U.S government orders are entitled to their good name, regardless of how many innocent people they kill. It is ironic to see such solicitude for the rights of individuals who may have violated the Geneva Convention. Perhaps privacy rights are the only rights that government respects any more. But the only people who are entitled to privacy are those who followed orders and committed horrendous crimes.

Panetta also asserted that his request to suppress all the evidence was “in no way driven by a desire to prevent embarrassment for the U.S. government or the CIA, or to suppress evidence of any unlawful conduct. ”

Panetta neglected to add that he would sell the judge the Brooklyn Bridge for only $29.95.

The Obama administration’s objections to letting Americans learn the truth about CIA abuses is only the latest chapter in a cover-up that has lasted most of this new century.

In 2003, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a Freedom of Information Act request for information on the U.S. treatment of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. The Bush administration, scorning federal law, largely rebuffed the request. On September 15, 2004, Judge Hellerstein condemned the feds: “If the documents are more of an embarrassment than a secret, the public should know of our government’s treatment of individuals captured and held abroad.” The judge was outraged at the Bush administration’s bogus invocation of “national security” to deny providing information. Hellerstein gave the feds a 30-day deadline to provide the information.

But the feds effectively ignored Hellerstein’s deadline — as it did most of the other judicial deadlines that have arisen from the torture scandal. If all the photos and all the memos had been revealed in October 2004, voters might have denied Bush’s quest for a second term.

The latest stonewalling is especially appalling because it comes from a president who promised transparency and openness when he took office earlier this year. Instead, the Obama team is crafting a rule that might justify covering up any government atrocity.

Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU’s national security program, observed that the Obama administration’s position is the same as asserting that “the greater the abuse, the more important it is that it should remain secret.” The ACLU deserves three cheers for its almost six-year battle for the truth about how the U.S. treats detainees.

It was only last month that the Obama administration caved in to conservative criticism and announced that it would effectively prohibit Americans (and everyone else in the world) from seeing hundreds of photos of detainee abuses by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama compounded this outrage by supporting a legislative monstrosity known as the Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act. This bill, sponsored by Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn) and Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC), would have given the Secretary of Defense almost unlimited sway to suppress evidence of abuses committed by the U.S. military.

This blank check for military censorship passed the U.S. Senate but, at last report, was blocked in the House of Representatives (thanks to liberal Democratic members).

The torture scandal sheds far more light onto the soul of American politics than the rhetoric of any politician. At a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at the U.S. Capitol on April 23, Obama called for “fighting the silence that is evil’s greatest co-conspirator.” Perhaps Obama, like many officials of the previous administration, believes that the U.S. government is by definition incapable of evil.

In a speech six weeks ago at CIA headquarters, Obama declared: “What makes the United States special, and what makes you special, is precisely the fact that we are willing to uphold our values and ideals even when it’s hard.”

This is the same “invoke American values” defense that President George W. Bush used in 2004 and 2005 after the torture scandal first erupted. It is deluging people with national flattery as a substitute for ceasing national disgraces. But hot air is no substitute for hard facts.

James Bovard is the author of Attention Deficit Democracy (Palgrave, 2006), Terrorism and Tyranny (Palgrave, 2003), Lost Rights (St. Martin’s, 1994), and serves as a policy advisor for The Future of Freedom Foundation.

Monday 8th June 2009

42nd Anniversary of the Israeli Attack on the USS Liberty

11:24 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 6

On June 8, 1967, Israeli forces knowingly attacked an American intelligence ship off the coast of Egypt. Thirty-four Americans were killed.

The Johnson administration responded by rushing to coverup the facts.

James Bamford, author of Body of Secrets, has unearthed massive evidence proving that the Israelis had definitely identified the ship as American before they sought to destroy it.

The fact that many of the files and tapes relating to the attack on the USS Liberty are still kept under wraps illustrates how truth has scant chance in DC - if some major interest group is profiting from official lies.

Ray McGovern had an excellent article on Counterpunch last week on the belated award of a silver star to Terry Halbardier, a Navy seaman who prevented the Israelis from finishing off the USS Liberty and all its crew. Scott Horton of Antiwar.com Radio interviewed McGovern; the MP3 file is here.

Here is a link to a blog I did to a superb Chicago Tribune 2007 expose proving that the U.S. government has long known that its story on the USS Liberty attack is a fraud.

Here is a link to the Anti-Defamation League’s page on the bigots and conspiracy nuts who refuse to accept the Official Story.

Wednesday 3rd June 2009

Government’s Right to Murder - Now Official in Prince George’s County, Maryland

2:16 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 4

I have been ragging on Prince George’s County, Maryland (adjacent to DC) for most of this decade.

Good Ol’ PG just outdid itself.

The county prosecutor has signaled that there will be no charges in the case of an inmate murdered by prison guards.

Whoops - that’s not quite what PG officials said.

Instead, there will be no charges in the case of the mysterious death of an inmate whom prison guards claim might have committed suicide. Except that there was no evidence of suicide, and the evidence that did exist vanished or was otherwise mangled.

The county medical examiner concluded prisoner Ronnie White was murdered by strangulation. (White allegedly ran over and killed a police officer before being jailed).

But - oh bother - county officials are shrugging their shoulders and moseying along. They appeared to have made little or no effort to gather evidence - or to threaten guards with obstruction of justice or perjury charges. Instead, county officials have kowtowed to a Blue Wall of Silence and the prison guards’ union.

Don’t worry, though. You don’t need to fear being murdered by government officials in P.G. County unless some cop or prison guard thinks you are a bad person.

And luckily, cops and prison guards are omniscient. Or at least that is how they are treated in P.G. County.

Monday 1st June 2009

Supreme Court Justice Aids Torture Coverup

1:33 pm | Attention Deficit Democracy | Congress | Torture | Comments: 3

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsburg approved an Obama administration request to have an additional 30 days to submit their appeal to justify suppressing the photos of US troops torturing detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. The administration can now dally until July 9 before submitting their brief arguing their case.

This is simply one more layer of BS atop of all the government excuses that have piled up since May 2004. Ginsburg’s order is a green light for the government to continue playing games and concocting excuses not to disclose the hard evidence of U.S. war crimes.

The SCOTUS Blog notes: “President Obama and his aides are pursuing two paths for trying to overturn that disclosure order: first, they are seeking action by Congress to amend the FOIA to bar the release; if that does not succeed, they plan to ask the Supreme Court to overturn the Circuit Court decision…. The Ginsburg delay order gives Congress more time to act. The Senate has passed a measure to block the photos’ disclosure, and the two houses are expected to work on the issue early this month.”

The torture scandal continues revealing the sham that there are any checks and balances to restrain our rulers from seizing and abusing absolute power.

Friday 29th May 2009

Obama’s Torture Coverup

9:37 pm | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bovard | Torture | Comments: 2

Does President Obama have a vested interest in covering up the crimes of the Bush administration?

His decision to block the release of photos of U.S. troops abusing detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan is a reminder that the nation may still be running on “Cheney time.” As long as the photos are not released, former Bush administration officials can control the narrative - if not the entire debate. They can continue denying that the US government engaged in torture - at the same time they make specious claims about the vast benefits from using ‘extreme interrogation.’

Obama will be damned by the torture masterminds regardless of what he does. His suppression of evidence of their crimes merely aids their efforts to vilify him and makes other Americans - and much of the world - distrust him.

Unfortunately, as with the torture scandal itself, it may be years until we know why the Obama team is colluding with people almost certainly guilty of war crimes.

Thursday 28th May 2009

The Campaign Reform Scam/Crime/Damn Outrage - Parts 1 and 2

The Future of Freedom Foundation posted online today the second part of my analysis of the McCain Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act hokum. (This is from the February issue of Freedom Daily). I am reposting it here, along with the first part of the article (posted on this blog yesterday).
***

The Campaign Reform Scam Part 1 Freedom Daily January 2009
by James Bovard

In 2002, Congress passed and George Bush signed the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA). The McCain-Feingold Act was supposed to create an era of clean politics — uncorrupt, untainted, and far loftier than what Americans had experienced in prior decades.

If the 2008 election proved anything, it revealed that politicians cannot be trusted to clean up politics. Instead, the “reform” laws they pass are usually nothing more than attempts to suppress criticism and protect incumbents against challenge.

At the time the McCain-Feingold Act was being debated, the supposed problem plaguing American politics was the proliferation of so-called soft money — money given by individuals or political action committees in amounts not limited by federal regulations. President Bush’s solicitor general, Theodore Olson, told the Supreme Court that soft money is “a euphemism for money that’s going around the system … money that is prohibited to go to Federal elections.”

But the concept of “soft money” is itself a charade based on the idea that politicians should have almost boundless control over anything that could affect their reelection.

At the same time that Congress imposed new restrictions on citizens’ political activism, it doubled the amount of money that can be legally given to candidates (so-called hard money). During the 1999-2000 election cycle, 90 percent of the hard money went to incumbent congressmen. Incumbents received almost 10 times as much money as challengers because the incumbents are already in a position to reward donors.

Though almost all congressmen get reelected, their victories are often tarnished by the indignities they suffer along the path to perpetuating their power. The most revolutionary element of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act is the de facto prohibition on most issue ads on radio and television during election season. Thanks to the new act, it can be a federal crime to expose the abuses of congressmen or presidents while they are seeking reelection — usually the only time their power can be effectively challenged. The act restricts nonprofit groups’, corporations’, and other entities’ “electioneering communications” within 30 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general election. An “electioneering communication” is defined broadly enough to stifle most things that can adversely affect the voting totals of an incumbent president or member of Congress. It would have been indelicate for Congress to specifically prohibit ads criticizing incumbent politicians. Instead, it banned practically all issue ads from radio and television.

The Bill of Rights is not vague on this subject. The First Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” Congress ignored this stark edict and imposed stranglehold restrictions on “electioneering communications.”

Attacking free speech

Like a bunch of amateur actors in a small-town Shakespeare performance, one congressman after another proclaimed a lofty motive for knifing the First Amendment in the debate leading to the bill’s passage. Rep. Chris Shays (R-Conn.) claimed the restrictions were actually a triumph for free speech:

The reform legislation we introduce today strengthens First Amendment values. It will ensure that elected officials are more responsive to the voices of their constituents and do not appear beholden only to big money. As your own constituents would surely tell you, stemming the tide of soft money would improve their access to government — and enhance their First Amendment rights — by allowing them to participate in the process.

“First Amendment values” became an Orwellian substitute for “freedom of speech.”

Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.) also insisted that restricting criticism of congressmen was a victory for free speech: “We need to stand up for the First Amendment and treat these groups and these people playing politics in elections the same as the candidates themselves.” The Founding Fathers forgot to include a footnote to the First Amendment specifying the need for full disclosure to the federal speech police.

Some members insisted that by betraying the Bill of Rights, Congress would restore Americans’ trust in government. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) declared, “We have an opportunity today to send a valentine to the American people; to tell them they are important to us; that what they think matters to us; that they should have faith in government.” Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) commented, “We must pass [the campaign finance reform act] to lessen the people’s growing cynicism…. It is time to restore the people’s faith in their government.”

Nothing infuriated many solons more than negative ads. Democratic senators denounced attack ads as the equivalent of “crack cocaine,” “drive-by shootings,” and “air pollution.” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) declared, “I hope that we will not allow our attention to be distracted from the real issues at hand — how to raise the tenor of the debate in our elections and give people real choices. No one benefits from negative ads. They don’t aid our nation’s political dialog.”

While campaigning for the presidential nomination in December 1999, McCain announced, “If I could think of a way constitutionally, I would ban negative ads.”

Bush signed the law on March 27, 2002. He applauded the fact that the law “creates new disclosure requirements and compels speedier compliance with existing ones, which will promote the free and swift flow of information to the public regarding the activities of groups and individuals in the political process.”

Unfortunately, as Bush’s secrecy mania shows, he does not cherish the same standard of the “free and swift flow of information” regarding the government’s own activities. He declared, “All of the American electorate will benefit from these measures to strengthen our democracy.”

Supreme Court review

The new law was quickly challenged and ended up in the Supreme Court on September 8, 2003. Many incumbents were bitter about the burden of fundraising. Dietary freedom was a major goal of the new law: Theodore Olson, recited tales of woe by senators “who describe what it’s like, the breakfasts, the lunches, the receptions, the dinners, the endless cycle of campaign finance.” Chief Justice Rehnquist retorted, “I don’t believe [it] is a permissible basis for a restriction that, you know, we’re tired of having to go to these breakfasts and lunches.” Some of the new law’s supporters presumed that if members of Congress were not so busy raising money, they might even begin reading the bills they vote on and perhaps even become zealous at oversight. Such naiveté would be touching if it was not countenancing the sacrifice of some people’s freedom to augment other people’s leisure.

On December 10, 2003, the Supreme Court upheld most provisions of the law by a 5 to 4 vote. The ban on issue ads survived intact. The majority decision offered endless hairsplitting about “electioneering communications.” The Supreme Court did not deign to explain why Americans should have more unfettered access to bestiality videos than to information about what their rulers were doing to them.

The majority of the justices concluded that the pervasive new restrictions were justified to reduce the American political system’s corruption or the appearance of corruption. The Court’s decision repeatedly derided “so-called issue advocacy” — as if any comments on public policy during election season are inherently suspect. The Court justified greatly expanding federal restrictions on speech because “the presence or absence of magic words cannot meaningfully distinguish electioneering speech from a true issue ad.” The Court noted that its earlier decisions exempting “express advocacy” from restrictions “has not aided the legislative effort to combat real or apparent corruption.” Public communications “that promote or attack a candidate for federal office … undoubtedly have a dramatic effect on federal elections. Such ads were a prime motivating force behind BCRA’s passage,” the Court noted. The Court declared that “any public communication that promotes or attacks a clearly identified federal candidate directly affects the election in which he is participating.” So, the Court reasoned, members of Congress were entitled to restrict such communications. It explained: “Congress enacted the new ‘electioneering communications’ provisions precisely because it recognized that the express advocacy test was woefully inadequate at capturing communications designed to influence candidate elections.” But who entitled Congress to “capture” everything intended to influence an election? Does the Supreme Court believe that incumbents are practically entitled to mind control over the voters?

The Supreme Court ruled that pre-election issue ads can be criminalized: even if “advertisements do not urge the viewer to vote for or against a candidate in so many words they are no less clearly intended to influence the election.” It denounced “sham ads” but never defined the word “sham.” Paul Jacob, former chief of U.S. Term Limits, a nonprofit group that fights corruption by ending congressmen’s tenured status, commented, “Perhaps labeling an advertisement a ‘sham’ is like naming someone an ‘enemy combatant’ — all constitutional rights are then lost.” The Supreme Court sacrificed freedom to fairness — in this case, protecting politicians from potentially unfair criticism.

The profound philosophical issues in the decision were largely ignored in the media’s coverage. Instead, most story lines simply portrayed the decision as a victory over conniving special interests. Justice Clarence Thomas rightly declared that the decision “upholds what can only be described as the most significant abridgment of the freedoms of speech and association since the Civil War.”

Scalia’s dissent

Justice Scalia, in a noble dissent, warned that the law “cuts to the heart of what the First Amendment is meant to protect: the right to criticize the government.” He declared that “this legislation prohibits the criticism of members of Congress by those entities most capable of giving such criticism a loud voice: national political parties and corporations, both of the commercial and the not-for-profit sort.” He hinted that some members of Congress “who voted for this legislation did so not to produce ‘fairer’ campaigns, but to mute criticism of their records and facilitate reelection.”

Scalia noted how the decision attacked both freedom of speech and freedom of association: “The freedom to associate with others for the dissemination of ideas — not just by singing or speaking in unison, but by pooling financial resources for expressive purposes — is part of the freedom of speech.” He captured the transcendent issue before the Court: “This litigation is about preventing criticism of the government.” Preserving the government’s reputation now trumps the people’s rights.

Seth Waxman, a former U.S. solicitor general who argued in favor of the law to the Supreme Court, hailed the verdict: “Congress is not handcuffed by the First Amendment.” But if Congress is not handcuffed by the First Amendment, then what could possibly curb its power?

**************PART 2******************************

We saw in the last issue how the McCain-Feingold Act — the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA) — sought to fundamentally change the American political landscape. Politicians did not allow the Act’s power to lie idle in the first presidential election after its enactment.

The BCRA’s issue-ad ban — the peril that Justice Antonin Scalia targeted in his dissent to the Supreme Court decision upholding the act — quickly helped muzzle potential critics of incumbents.

The BCRA “protects” citizens from exposure to a sweeping array of messages. The AFL-CIO noted that the act prohibits pre-election ads that

call upon a Member of Congress to support or oppose imminent legislation, or ask viewers or listeners to urge the member to do so; inform the public, or express an opinion, about a Member of Congress’s votes, legislative proposals or performance otherwise; respond directly to a Member [of Congress] who has criticized the [independent] organization or taken issue with its activities or policies; or encourage candidates to commit that, if elected, they will support or oppose particular legislation or policies.

The issue-ad ban strikes across the board, muzzling the National Abortion Rights League and the American Life League, the National Rifle Association and the Brady Campaign to Ban Handguns, the Sierra Club and the American Civil Liberties Union.

On March 11, 2004, the Federal Election Commission proposed sweeping rules that could reclassify thousands of nonprofit organizations as federal “political committees” if they spent more than $1,000 on any type of activity related to a presidential or congressional election. The Coalition to Protect Nonprofit Advocacy, an organization with 600 members from across the ideological spectrum, complained, “Under the proposed rules, nonprofits would be virtually prohibited from criticizing or praising President Bush until after the November election.” The proposed regulations are so sweeping that “a church … could not publish a legislative report card during an election year…. The NAACP would have to stop its 2004 voter registration campaigns,” the Coalition declared. A group of 120 House Democrats protested to the FEC, “There has been absolutely no case made to Congress, or record established by the commission, to support any notion that tax-exempt organizations and other independent groups threaten the legitimacy of our government when criticizing its policies.”

The Drug Policy Alliance warned that the proposed rules “represent one of the worst assaults on the freedoms of speech and association ever proposed in the United States” and that the rules could “silence our work to end the government-funded War on Drugs.”

Suppressing speech

The Bush legal team quickly used the new law to seek to suppress private groups from criticizing the president any time during an election year. In early 2004, left-wing and anti-war groups launched advertisements criticizing Bush and his record. The Republican National Committee on March 5, 2004, formally warned 250 television stations not to play the ads. RNC chief counsel Jill Holtzman Vogel asserted that the ads by MoveOn.org violated the new campaign-finance act. Vogel declared, “Between now and November, our nation will engage in a debate that pits President Bush’s strong and steady leadership against others who seek to attack the President and engage in a vicious, negative campaign.”

Vogel hinted that the stations’ survival could be on the line: “As a broadcaster licensed by the Federal Communications Commission, you have a responsibility to the viewing public and to your licensing agency to refrain from complicity in any illegal activity.”

Vogel explained that under the new campaign law, “any entity that spends or raises more than $1,000 in a calendar year ‘for the purpose of influencing any election for federal office’ must register as a federal political committee” with the FEC. Vogel asserted that MoveOn.org could not use “soft money” for its supposedly illegal ad campaign.

A few days later, Bush’s reelection campaign formally requested the Federal Election Commission to launch an investigation of the Media Fund, another group running advertisements critical of Bush. The Bush campaign’s general counsel, Tom Josefiak, condemned the ads as “an attempt to blow up the ban on the newly passed campaign finance reform bill.”

Media Fund spokesman James Jordan denounced the Bush campaign’s allegation as “a lie, a deliberate misrepresentation of the law. This is nothing more than a cynical and transparent attempt to intimidate our donors and silence dissenting voices.”

On April 5, Bush campaign chairman Marc Racicot urged supporters to contact the FEC to urge them to crack down on the ad campaigns criticizing the president. Racicot’s appeal generated 66,000 emails to the agency. (The FEC decided to postpone imposing restrictions on certain nonprofit groups until after the 2004 election.)

At the same time that Republicans pressured the FEC to ban the activities of the new groups, they hinted that they could file criminal referrals directly with the Justice Department. The new campaign law includes prison time for types of offenses previously punished only by fines. The Hill reported on March 25 that “some Republican operatives, including a senior Bush adviser, have said they expect complaints to be filed directly with the Department of Justice.” Some Republicans suggested criminal prosecution would be appropriate for the large donors to the new groups.

At the same time the Republican National Committee sought to suppress the Moveon.org ads, Bush was traveling around the country on taxpayer-financed fundraising gigs. The president has the right to dishonestly send hundreds of Americans to their deaths in foreign wars, but American citizens have little or no right to expose his lies during a time when he is seeking to perpetuate his power over them.

At the same time the Bush campaign and the Republican National Committee sought to use federal law to bludgeon critics into silence, the president’s reelection campaign began running television ads hyping Bush’s leadership and showing a dead person being carried out of the World Trade Center wreckage. If a private group ran an ad with exactly the same video images and different audio comments criticizing Bush, the president’s lawyers almost certainly would have used the new law to seek to suppress the ads.

By banning the mention of politicians’ names in ads in the months before an election, the Act makes it far more difficult to inform Americans about who is responsible for what the government has done. It could have been construed as a federal crime for a private group to pay to broadcast in September and October of 2004 the fact that a given congressman had voted for the USA PATRIOT Act. Even a simple “tombstone” television ad — stating in large print, “Rep. Smith Voted for the PATRIOT Act” — could have been judged illegal. Regardless of how much power the PATRIOT Act confers upon the government, it could be a criminal offense to publicize a congressman’s support for it. Similarly, an October 2004 television advertisement merely listing Attorney General John Ashcroft’s mildly deranged statements could have been considered illegal as an unfair attack on the president’s reelection campaign.

Immunizing the feds

Though independent groups are prohibited from criticizing congressmen, congressmen have unlimited freedom to attack such groups and anyone else they please. U.S. Term Limits’s Paul Jacob noted that an incumbent congressman “could run ads at election time slamming [a] group and wildly distorting the truth. While spot after spot by the congressman plays on television screens mercilessly smearing the organization, the federal speech Gestapo will be there to make certain that the insolent group is not permitted to air a single ad which dares mention the powerful congressman by name or, heaven forbid, show his or her royal likeness.” This is Congress’s idea of a level playing field.

The McCain-Feingold Act was enacted in part because congressmen claimed that political “issue ads” are so poisonous that they destroy the chances for clean elections. But the government’s own actions make campaign “issue ads” look downright innocuous. No “issue ad” ever affected as many Americans as did the film footage of FBI tanks smashing into the Branch Davidians’ home in Waco, Texas. No “issue ad” shook as many people as the photograph of a federal agent pointing a submachine gun towards terrified six-year-old Elián Gonzalez, whom Attorney General Janet Reno sent 130 G-men to seize in the middle of the night on April 22, 2000.

The Supreme Court sacrifices freedom to protect Americans against “sham ads.” But this does nothing to ban or rein in sham politicians. And what about sham wars? What about the sham TSA? What about the other sham antiterrorism efforts? What about the sham farm subsidies? Regardless of how many shams politicians concoct, a purity test is now required for all critics.

There is no way to clean up American politics without greatly decreasing the power of politicians to buy votes. This is the heart of the corruption, and nothing in the BCRA comes within a million miles of touching that power. The fundamental problem with the federal government is that its power is nearly boundless. The BCRA expands that power by suppressing criticism of government.

While congressmen portrayed the BCRA as a strike against greedy special interests, there was no recognition that government itself is the most powerful and most dangerous special interest. In the name of curbing special interests, Congress made it more difficult to curb government power.

The issue-ad ban is nothing more than unilateral political disarmament of the victims of the federal government. Congress criminalized the effective exposure of its own wrongdoing. Instead, groups can criticize members of Congress only during times when most voters are not paying attention. In most elections, political illiterates are the largest single voting bloc.

The Supreme Court effectively decreed that the American people will be better served if their rulers are less criticized. That is not a doctrine fit for a free people. As Justice Scalia noted in his dissent,

The premise of the First Amendment is that the American people are neither sheep nor fools, and hence fully capable of considering both the substance of the speech presented to them and its proximate and ultimate source. If that premise is wrong, our democracy has a much greater problem to overcome than merely the influence of amassed wealth.

What gives our rulers the right to dictate how and when they may be criticized? The fact that Congress would pass, the president would sign, and the Supreme Court would uphold the ban on issue ads is itself proof of profound corruption in Washington.

Maintaining trust in government is not more important than preserving freedom. We cannot “clean up democracy” by making political speech more regulated than hazardous waste disposal.

Wednesday 27th May 2009

The Campaign Reform Crime (or Scam?)

The Future of Freedom Foundation posted online today my article from the January issue of Freedom Daily on campaign reform scams. This is the first part of a two-part series on the McCain-Feingold act and related hokum.
********************************

The Campaign Reform Scam Part 1 Freedom Daily January 2009
by James Bovard

But the concept of “soft money” is itself a charade based on the idea that politicians should have almost boundless control over anything that could affect their reelection.

Attacking free speech

The reform legislation we introduce today strengthens First Amendment values. It will ensure that elected officials are more responsive to the voices of their constituents and do not appear beholden only to big money. As your own constituents would surely tell you, stemming the tide of soft money would improve their access to government — and enhance their First Amendment rights — by allowing them to participate in the process.

“First Amendment values” became an Orwellian substitute for “freedom of speech.”

While campaigning for the presidential nomination in December 1999, McCain announced, “If I could think of a way constitutionally, I would ban negative ads.”

Supreme Court review

Scalia’s dissent

Sunday 24th May 2009

Politicians and Memorial Day: The Guy Fawkes Solution

4:37 pm | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bovard | Uncategorized | Comments: 3

I stopped by the Visitors Center at Manassas Battlefield Park last month and was struck by a quote capturing Georgia private B. M. Zettler’s reaction to being enmeshed in the battle of Bull Run:

“I felt that I was in the presence of death. My first thought was, ‘This is unfair - someone is to blame for getting us all killed. I didn’t come here to fight this way…’

An excellent sentiment - one that should not be forgotten on Memorial Day. It would have been fairer if the politicians had been in the front lines on both sides at Manassas.

Sheldon Richman, the editor of the Freeman, proposes renaming Memorial Day as Revisionist History Day. General Patton said that an ounce of sweat can save a pint of blood. Similarly, a little reading and thinking this time of year can save a heap of grave digging in the future.

Sacralizing the war dead usually results in exonerating the politicians. Rather than parades, it would be better to celebrate this holiday like the British used to celebrate Guy Fawkes Day - by burning politicians in effigy, or a reasonable facsimile.

Too harsh?

Read the Pentagon Papers - and recognize the proper fate of all the politicians and political appointees who hatched and perpetuated that sham.

Likewise for the Iraq war.

Saturday 23rd May 2009

Put Your Faith in Bat ****

8:52 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 2

Scott Adams has paying tribute to MBAs this week. Here is his “bottom line” strip:

It is good that more folks are recognizing the BS of Business wiz kids.

Now if only people would recognize that political charlatans are even more dangerous….

Thursday 21st May 2009

Obama Economic Recovery Official Email Notification

3:27 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 0

[from the Wall Street Examiner :]

From: TIMOTHY F. GEITHNER (us.treasury.adminoffice@us.gov)
Subject: I am Timothy F. Geithner, Secretary of the United States National Treasury.
Date: May 21, 2009 11:41:27 AM CDT
Reply-To: apx-deliverycoltd@live.com

Good day to you, I am Timothy F. Geithner, Secretary of the United States National Treasury. President Obama nominated me to be the 75th Secretary of the Treasury and the United States Senate confirmed me to the position on January 26, 2009 and I was sworn into office by Supreme Court Chief Justice.

As Treasury Secretary, I am the President’s leading policy advisor on a broad range of domestic and international economic issues. Before coming to Treasury, I was the ninth president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on November 17, 2003. In that capacity, I served as the vice chairman and a permanent member of the Federal Open Market Committee, the group responsible for formulating the nation’s monetary policy. I have also served as chairman of the G-10’s Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems of the Bank for International Settlements and i am a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Group of Thirty. I joined the Department of Treasury in 1988 and worked in t

Kindly visit the website below to view my personal profile.

Website:http://www.forexhsi. com/forexnews/news1003/news_ 253231.php

The United Nations have given me due Instructions, alongside with the World Bank to wire a sum of $10million US Dollars Only into your Bank Account in a Legal way. That is why I have contacted you, as the United States Department of Justice, in The Person of the Attorney General will get some documents for you so that this Transaction can be completed without delay.

Below is the Required Documents:

1: United Nations Stop Order Document
2: World Bank Clearance Certificate
3: Proof of Ownership Certificate.

These three(3) documents are needed before I can proceed with the transfer into your bank account: in the meantime; I want you to Re-Confirm the following details to me for your Case File Processing.

Legal First and Last Name:
Complete Residential Address & Age
Direct Telephone No & Fax
Legal Occupation and Position
Address of Occupation

Please get back to me as soon as possible.

Thanks and God Bless you.

Timothy F. Geithner
Executive Secretary United States Treasury Department
Main Treasury
1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20220

Torture Masterminds & the Prosecution of Michael Vick

10:50 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 2

So Michael Vick has been released from federal prison after serving 19 months for dog abuse.

Vick was prosecuted by an organization - the U.S. Justice Department - renowned for crafting legal rationales for torture.

Maybe if Vick had claimed that he was talking to the dogs - trying to get information out of them about Saddam and 9/11 - at the same time he abused them, the Justice Department would have given him a commendation instead of prosecuting him.

Vick’s case was settled by a plea agreement. It is a disgrace that judges accept such plea agreements as “voluntary,” since prosecutors ladle on so many charges that such deals are often the equivalent of a robber’s option: “your money or your life.”

American citizens rarely have the opportunity to pass judgment on the conduct of prosecutors. Legislators have assured that fewer people each decade can afford to risk total ruin by seeking a jury verdict.

What Vick did to dogs was despicable and he can rightfully be condemned for it by other Americans.

But to have the U.S. Justice Department preening itself on this case…. What a load of bunk.

Monday 11th May 2009

“Thus Ended Capitalism”

10:11 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 1

Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams has a wonderful strip on the real credit crisis - the fact that so few people can trust each other any more.

The only thing that was missing from the strip was a final square or two reassuring people that Washington will intervene and make honesty the law of the land.

Friday 8th May 2009

The Real Victims of the Torture Scandal

Instapundit Glenn Reynolds debunks the torture scandal once and for all. In a post entitled “PELOSI LIED, THE WATERBOARDING ISSUE DIED,” Reynolds declares that “the torture issue was mostly a political tool designed to cow right-leaning members of the punditocracy by calling them Nazis. Now that it’s not needed so much, it can be allowed to die.”

I reckon being criticized for being pro-torture is a fate even worse than being head-slapped, kept awake for 11 days, waterboarded dozens of times, and left outside bare and freezing.

Has anyone seen an excellent round-up of jaw-dropping torture apologies or torture defenses by American politicians and pundits since 2004?
[hat tip to TAC]

AmeriCorps Vindicated in Baltimore Sun

9:49 am | AmeriCorps | Attention Deficit Democracy | Uncategorized | Comments: 8

From today’s Baltimore Sun:

In his recent Op-Ed criticizing the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act (”AmeriCorps boondoggle grows, April 28), James Bovard missed the boat on the essence of AmeriCorps and its engagement of professional volunteers to implement sustainable social change in America.

By allocating increased funds to AmeriCorps, the federal government places resources in the hands of organizations with a proven aptitude for tackling some of our toughest problems. For years, the Greater Homewood Community Corporation (GHCC) has provided AmeriCorps volunteers with meaningful experiences that make a lasting difference in Baltimore. More than a dozen members join our staff every year.

Last year, AmeriCorps volunteers at GHCC generated more than $1.5 million dollars in resources into Baltimore neighborhoods. Over the past decade, our members have facilitated free vision screenings, dental cleanings, winter coat drives, Thanksgiving and Christmas basket drives, mentoring programs, after-school programs, and countless other services that so many of us take for granted.

Many talented individuals are eager to serve their country and community. We would be remiss not to put these people to work here at home, where they have unlimited potential to effect positive change in our communities.

To suggest that AmeriCorps members merely busy themselves as they are paid with government dollars on false pretenses belittles the enormous contribution these individuals make to our communities. Karen Stokes Baltimore

Karen Stokes is executive director of the Greater Homewood Community Corporation.

******
“Professional volunteers”?

And how can we know that they are professional? ‘Cause they get paid.

Stokes says that AmeriCorps members “have unlimited potential to effect positive change in our communities.”

And the evidence she offers? Winter coat drives and free Christmas baskets.

That is not quite a revolution.

Wednesday 6th May 2009

Flu-Induced Insanity from the Obama Team

2:26 pm | Attention Deficit Democracy | Uncategorized | wool | Comments: 2

The Washington Post reports that the Obama administration is considering pushing for all Americans to get 3 flu shots this Fall - “one to combat annual seasonal influenza and two targeted at the new swine flu virus spreading across the globe.”

So is this part of a stimulus package for autism treatment centers, or what?

It is bizarre that the Obama health policy wizards would presume that there is no risk for loading Americans with newly invented, unproven “vaccines.” (The 1976 swine flu vaccine had disastrous effects for legions of Americans).

David Burd, a medical technology consultant and retired patent examiner, sent me some incisive comments on the hoopla:

Our Authorities are putting on a fantastic show - truly professional - herding the 300 million American sheep. The only actual swine in the current Flu Episode are all the Medical Leaders. Maybe this should be called the Sheep & Swine Flu.

In actuality, the millions of tests now ongoing for this new H1N1 “strain” are just finding what humans have had forever, with some having a higher density of antigens/RNA that passes a newly created testing threshhold. However, what is new it is looked for! And, despite the hysteria proving to be barely pathogenic, if at all. And, repeating the great public relations’ success of hiv-testing, looking for something we all have but calibrated (grading on the curve) to only elicit a tiny percentage of “positives.” Hey!, this proves it is contagious or infectious! Shut down the schools! Quarantine the hotels! Close the movie theatres! Wear your mask! Spend $billions on antivirals! Be ever grateful to our Health Leaders! Get your flu shots!!!

Most of the Mexican “flu” fatalities, I would bet my favorite hat, are directly caused by antiviral medicines that are truly a new medical disgrace. All one has to do is look up their admitted toxicities and side effects - demonstrably all risk - no benefit, ala the hysterical, farcical, SARS episode.

My hunch from our conversations and his writings is that Dave is not a big fan of the medical establishment. I think the politicians and bureaucrats also deserve heaps of blame in this still-unfolding debacle.

Tuesday 5th May 2009

My 2 Cents on Ron Paul, Surveillance, and the Republican Party’s Future

David Weigel has a good piece in the Washington Independent today on Ron Paul ’s rising influence in Washington. The articles mentions that Ron Paul has been bringing in some folks to have lunch and discuss ideas with some of his Republican colleagues. The article includes a quote from me: “There’s a growing recognition that the GOP is intellectually bankrupt and morally bankrupt…. I’m glad that Paul is putting together these meetings. I hope the battle of ideas is changing.”

When I was the guest at a luncheon discussion in Paul’s office last Thursday, I spoke primarily about torture and warrantless wiretapping. Apropos the Jane Harman controversy, I asked the members of Congress: “How many of you are confident that your phone calls are NOT being wiretapped?”

I mentioned a comment by congressional leader Hale Boggs in 1971 on the effect of congressional “fear” of the FBI - how the FBI’s boundless surveillance undermined congressional oversight of the FBI in the 1960s and early 1970s. I asked whether the same thing could be happening now regarding congressional oversight of the various law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

The luncheon was off-the-record, so, unfortunately, I cannot disclose the responses to my questions. (Disclosing one’s own comments or questions is not a breach of confidentiality).

Monday 4th May 2009

“Audit the Fed” Surging - 110+ Co-Sponsors

3:41 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 1

Ron Paul’s “Audit the Fed” bill now has more than 110 co-sponsors. Paul’s legislation and the widespread support it is garnering is one of the silver linings to the financial crisis.

If the legislation continues gaining supporters, I expect the Obama administration, the Treasury Department, and others to start hammering the legislation as dangerous or subversive. This is the kind of endorsement that should spur broader support. It will be fun to watch the rascals sweat as more people begin asking why the Fed should continue receiving favored treatment accorded to no other entity with similar power and pull.

Here is Ron Paul’s February 26, 2009 speech upon introducing the legislation:

I rise to introduce the Federal Reserve Transparency Act. Throughout its nearly 100-year history, the Federal Reserve has presided over the near-complete destruction of the United States dollar. Since 1913 the dollar has lost over 95% of its purchasing power, aided and abetted by the Federal Reserve’s loose monetary policy. How long will we as a Congress stand idly by while hard-working Americans see their savings eaten away by inflation? Only big-spending politicians and politically favored bankers benefit from inflation.

Serious discussion of proposals to oversee the Federal Reserve is long overdue. I have been a longtime proponent of more effective oversight and auditing of the Fed, but I was far from the first Congressman to advocate these types of proposals. Esteemed former members of the Banking Committee such as Chairmen Wright Patman and Henry B. Gonzales were outspoken critics of the Fed and its lack of transparency.

Since its inception, the Federal Reserve has always operated in the shadows, without sufficient scrutiny or oversight of its operations. While the conventional excuse is that this is intended to reduce the Fed’s susceptibility to political pressures, the reality is that the Fed acts as a foil for the government. Whenever you question the Fed about the strength of the dollar, they will refer you to the Treasury, and vice versa. The Federal Reserve has, on the one hand, many of the privileges of government agencies, while retaining benefits of private organizations, such as being insulated from Freedom of Information Act requests.

The Federal Reserve can enter into agreements with foreign central banks and foreign governments, and the GAO is prohibited from auditing or even seeing these agreements. Why should a government-established agency, whose police force has federal law enforcement powers, and whose notes have legal tender status in this country, be allowed to enter into agreements with foreign powers and foreign banking institutions with no oversight? Particularly when hundreds of billions of dollars of currency swaps have been announced and implemented, the Fed’s negotiations with the European Central Bank, the Bank of International Settlements, and other institutions should face increased scrutiny, most especially because of their significant effect on foreign policy. If the State Department were able to do this, it would be characterized as a rogue agency and brought to heel, and if a private individual did this he might face prosecution under the Logan Act, yet the Fed avoids both fates.
More importantly, the Fed’s funding facilities and its agreements with the Treasury should be reviewed. The Treasury’s supplementary financing accounts that fund Fed facilities allow the Treasury to funnel money to Wall Street without GAO or Congressional oversight. Additional funding facilities, such as the Primary Dealer Credit Facility and the Term Securities Lending Facility, allow the Fed to keep financial asset prices artificially inflated and subsidize poorly performing financial firms.

The Federal Reserve Transparency Act would eliminate restrictions on GAO audits of the Federal Reserve and open Fed operations to enhanced scrutiny. We hear officials constantly lauding the benefits of transparency and especially bemoaning the opacity of the Fed, its monetary policy, and its funding facilities. By opening all Fed operations to a GAO audit and calling for such an audit to be completed by the end of 2010, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act would achieve much-needed transparency of the Federal Reserve. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Tuesday 28th April 2009

Saluting AmeriCorps in IBD

Good ol’ AmeriCorps just can’t get as many salutes as it deserves. This is the first time I have seen the phrase “bogus idealism” in a headline.
****
INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY
Rife With Bogus Idealism, Waste, AmeriCorps Doesn’t Need To Exist

By JAMES BOVARD

President Obama signed legislation Tuesday to triple the number of AmeriCorps members from 75,000 to 250,000.

Obama declared that the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act is about “connecting deeds to needs.” Ironically, the signing ceremony and a $5 billion multiyear outlay for AmeriCorps came one day after Obama called on his cabinet members to trim $100 million in wasteful government spending.

Paying people on false pretenses to do unnecessary things is the soul of AmeriCorps. Since President Clinton created this program in 1993, politicians have endlessly touted its recruits as volunteers toiling selflessly for the common good.

But the average AmeriCorps members receives more than $15,000 on an annual basis in pay and other benefits. And most AmeriCorps members go on to work for government agencies or nonprofit groups. Their AmeriCorps gig is more of a career stepping stone than an act of financial hari-kari.

AmeriCorps’ prestige has perennially been at war with its boondoggles.

During the Clinton administration, AmeriCorps members helped run a program in Buffalo that gave children $5 for each toy gun they brought in — as well as a certificate praising their decision not to play with toy guns.

In San Diego, AmeriCorps members busied themselves collecting used bras and panties for a homeless shelter.

In Los Angeles, AmeriCorps members busied themselves foisting unreliable ultra-low-flush toilets on poor people.

In New Jersey, AmeriCorps members enticed middle-class families to accept subsidized federal health insurance for their children.

Nowadays, many AmeriCorps programs are hailed in the media for projects that produce little more than sanctimony among participants:

• In Florida, AmeriCorps members in the “Women in Distress” program organized a poetry reading on the evils of domestic violence.

• In San Francisco, AmeriCorps members busy themselves mediating elementary-school playground disputes.

• In Montana, AmeriCorps members carried out a drive encouraging people to donate books to ship to Cameroon.

• In Oswego, N.Y., AmeriCorps members set up a donation bin to gather used cell phones for victims of domestic violence. AmeriCorps is beloved by politicians because it provides ample photo opportunities of them doing good deeds.

AmeriCorps headquarters encourages local programs to organize “AmeriCorps-for-a-Day events with elected officials” to help get them on board as supporters. A politician can show up, hammer three nails at a house-building project, and be assured of laudatory coverage in the local media.

AmeriCorps advocates claim that AmeriCorps members spur 1.7 million other Americans to volunteer each year. At best, this is the Tom Sawyer Model of Virtue: some people getting paid to sway other people to work for free.

In reality, AmeriCorps members have no such suasive gift. AmeriCorps routinely counts anyone who works in a project that AmeriCorps members “manage” as a new volunteer.

Thus, if 20 people are already working at a house building project where an AmeriCorps member temporarily supervises, all 20 can be counted as AmeriCorps-generated volunteers.

At the signing ceremony, Obama declared that “we will measure our progress not just in number of hours served or volunteers mobilized.”

But in reality, AmeriCorps has always relied on Soviet Bloc-style accounting to justify itself.

For instance, program defenders often assert that “540,000 AmeriCorps members have contributed more than 705 million hours of service” since 1994.

Many individual programs evaluate themselves with raw numbers that mean little. AmeriCorps members are leading a donation drive for items to ship to the Pennsylvania National Guard in Iraq.

AmeriCorps’ Rachel Ralph-Doyle declared: “Our goal is to collect 200 pounds of donations.” AmeriCorps has never performed a credible analysis of the value of the service that its members produce.

Instead, meaningless aggregates are “close enough for government work” to prove that AmeriCorps is a cornucopia.

But for politicians, the issue is not what AmeriCorps members produce but how it makes people feel about the federal government. AmeriCorps puts a smiley face on Uncle Sam.

America has enough real volunteers: It does not need mass production of government-issue bogus volunteers. The glorification of AmeriCorps should awaken Americans to the bogus idealism permeating Washington.

• Bovard is the author of “Attention Deficit Democracy” and eight other books.

Multiplying the Boondoggle of AmeriCorps - Baltimore Sun

2:35 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 0

BALTIMORE SUN
Multiplying the boondoggle of AmeriCorps
By James Bovard
April 28, 2009
President Barack Obama signed legislation last week to more than triple the number of AmeriCorps members, from 75,000 to 250,000. Mr. Obama declared that the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act is about “connecting deeds to needs.” Ironically, the signing ceremony and a $5 billion multiyear outlay for AmeriCorps came one day after Mr. Obama called on his Cabinet members to trim $100 million in wasteful government spending.

Paying people on false pretenses to do unnecessary things is the soul of AmeriCorps. Since President Bill Clinton created this program in 1993, politicians have endlessly touted its recruits as volunteers toiling selflessly for the common good. But the average AmeriCorps member receives more than $15,000 in yearly pay and other benefits. And most AmeriCorps members go on to work for government agencies or nonprofit groups. Their AmeriCorps gig is more of a career steppingstone than an act of financial sacrifice. AmeriCorps’ prestige has perennially been at war with its boondoggles.

During the Clinton administration, AmeriCorps members helped run a program in Buffalo that gave children $5 for each toy gun they brought in - as well as a certificate praising their decision not to play with toy guns. In San Diego, AmeriCorps members busied themselves collecting used bras and panties for a homeless shelter. In Los Angeles, AmeriCorps members foisted unreliable, ultra-low-flush toilets on poor people. In New Jersey, AmeriCorps members enticed middle-class families to accept subsidized federal health insurance for their children.

Nowadays, many AmeriCorps programs are hailed in the media for projects that produce little more than sanctimony among participants:

• In Florida, AmeriCorps members in the “Women in Distress” program organized a poetry reading on the evils of domestic violence.

• In San Francisco, AmeriCorps members busy themselves mediating elementary school playground disputes.

• In Montana, AmeriCorps members carried out a drive encouraging people to donate books to ship to Cameroon.

• In Oswego, N.Y., AmeriCorps members set up a donation bin to gather used cell phones for victims of domestic violence.

There is no evidence that federal intervention is necessary to produce tranquillity on California playgrounds or to provide alternative communication modes to Oswego wives and girlfriends. While such programs provide AmeriCorps with positive press coverage, the nation can survive without AmeriCorps’ “volunteers” stepping into such situations.

AmeriCorps is beloved by politicians because it provides ample photo opportunities of them doing good deeds. AmeriCorps headquarters encourages local programs to organize “AmeriCorps-for-a-Day” events with elected officials to help get them on board as supporters. A politician can show up, hammer three nails at a house-building project, and be assured of laudatory coverage in the local media.

AmeriCorps advocates claim that AmeriCorps members spur 1.7 million other Americans to volunteer each year. At best, this is the Tom Sawyer model of virtue: some people getting paid to sway other people to work for free. In reality, AmeriCorps members have no such suasive gift. AmeriCorps routinely counts anyone who works in a project that AmeriCorps members “manage” as a new volunteer. Thus, if 20 people are already working at a house-building project where an AmeriCorps member temporarily supervises, all 20 can be counted as AmeriCorps-generated volunteers.

At the signing ceremony, Mr. Obama declared that “we will measure our progress not just in number of hours served or volunteers mobilized.” But in reality, AmeriCorps has always relied on Soviet Bloc-style accounting to justify itself. For instance, program defenders often assert that “540,000 AmeriCorps members have contributed more than 705 million hours of service” since 1994.

Many individual programs evaluate themselves with raw numbers that mean little. AmeriCorps members are leading a donation drive for items to ship to the Pennsylvania National Guard in Iraq. AmeriCorps’ Rachel Ralph-Doyle declared: “Our goal is to collect 200 pounds of donations.”

AmeriCorps has never performed a credible analysis of the value of the service that its members produce. Instead, meaningless aggregates are “close enough for government work” to prove that AmeriCorps is a cornucopia. But for politicians, the issue is not what AmeriCorps members produce but how it makes people feel about the federal government. AmeriCorps puts a smiley face on Uncle Sam.

America has enough real volunteers; it does not need mass production of government-issue, bogus volunteers.

Jim Bovard is the author of “Attention Deficit Democracy” and eight other books.

Saturday 25th April 2009

Obama’s Double Standard on Atrocities & Evil

At a Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Capitol on Thursday, President Obama called for “fighting the silence that is evil’s greatest co-conspirator.”

On the same day, Obama decided to oppose creation of a truth commission to vigorously investigate and expose U.S. torture crimes.

This is another of those damn paradoxes of which Washington is full of.

Perhaps Obama believes that any atrocity with less than a million victims is merely a technical error.

Condemning a genocide committed by a foreign government cannot redeem Obama if he effectively pardons U.S. government officials guilty of barbaric practices.

Obama could reverse his opposition to a full disclosure. Or, perhaps more likely, the surge of events and the information already pried out of the government will create enough momentum that far more facts will become public.

Thursday 23rd April 2009

Podcast now online of today’s Brian Wilson show

6:31 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 1

Brian and I had some rattlin’ good laughs - at the feds’ expense, naturally.

The show is short @ 15 minutes - but hopefully makes up in snideness what it lacks in length.

Listen or download it here.

Bullseye on Fascism & Torture

Last week, conservatives were complaining Obama was establishing a socialistic fascist dictatorship.

This week, conservatives are complaining Obama does not want to torture his opponents. from Talking Points Memo

I reckon this is another one of those damn paradoxes Washington is full of.

There are plenty of reasons to vigorously oppose Obama’s power grabs (like Bush’s power grabs before him).

But the parade of apologists for torture on Capitol Hill and in the media is appalling. Championing torture symbolizes the blind faith in unlimited power that taints many Republicans and Democrats alike.

LISTEN LIVE - on the Brian Wilson Show Today (4/23)

10:40 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 4

I will be on the Brian Wilson radio show today from @ 5:05 pm to 5:30. Brian is one of the funniest and most thoughtful talk show hosts in the biz. We will be talking about the DHS terrorist profile memo, the torture memos, and other light-hearted topics.

Listen Live here. (He is on Toledo’s WSPD - 1370 on the AM dial).

Wednesday 22nd April 2009

On Judge Napolitano’s “Freedom Watch” This Afternoon (4/22) + UPDATE

9:46 am | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bovard | dictatorship | Comments: 4

I am scheduled to be on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s “Freedom Watch” internet broadcast on Fox today @ 2:30 pm. Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, and Glenn Beck are also scheduled for the program (which starts at 2 pm).

You can watch it live here. The show will also be archived at that site.

Topics for today’s discussion are the DHS profiling of right-wingers as terrorists, the torture memos, and “Constitution-free zones.” Lots of zesty targets….

+++UPDATE: If anyone saw the Internet broadcast live, I would be curious to hear their impressions. I was in the studio and did not see any of the program.

Tuesday 21st April 2009

Pity for a Constitution Stomper?

Congresswoman Jane Harman is indignant. A National Security Agency wiretap reportedly picked up her conversation seeking favors from a suspected Israeli agent in return for Harman lobbying the Justice Department to drop the lawsuit against AIPAC’s former top officials.

Harman denies the charge and swears that her good name has been defiled. (Har!). Harman sent a letter today to Attorney General Eric Holder asking him to release the transcripts of some of her NSA-tapped phone calls and to “investigate possible wiretapping of other Members of Congress and ’selective leaks of investigative material which can be used for political purposes.’”

Harman was a champion of illegal wiretaps on average Americans. She even urged the New York Times not to publish its original expose on Bush’s massive domestic warrantless wiretaps, and she suggested that the New York Times should be prosecuted when they did finally uncork the story.

Jeff Stein’s superb CQ article on Sunday revealed that Attorney General Gonzales had rebuffed proposals to prosecute Harman after the wiretpped conversations in part because Harman became a vigorous cheerleader for Bush’s destruction of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable, warrantless searches.

The feds should release the records of Harman’s phone calls (at her request) - and all the other evidence regarding members of Congress, White House and other exeuctive branch officials, lobbyists, and other insider players who have sought to pull strings to squelch the trial of AIPAC’s former leaders.

Friday 17th April 2009

Obama-Style “Nation of Laws”

Obama proudly declared yesterday that ours is a “nation of laws” at the same time he announced that CIA torturers would not be prosecuted for their crimes.

Life in Washington is one damn paradox after another.

Kudos to the American Civil Liberties Union for their lawsuit that compelled the disclosure of the torture memos yesterday. But these are probably only the tip of the iceberg. Hopefully the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and supporters of disclosing Bush-era crimes will have sufficient clout to force the government to reveal far more information on the torture scandal. Obama becomes complicit for all the crimes he covers up.

I will be curious to see if the revelations of how the Justice Department tortured the law and rationality to set loose the CIA will have any broader impact on how Americans view the federal government. I ain’t holdin’ my breath.

Thursday 16th April 2009

Latest Wiretap Crimes Spur No Fear or Loathing

2:22 pm | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bovard | Comments: 4

The New York Times revealed last night that the National Security Agency has been illegally spying on legions of Americans’ email and phone calls. Congress vastly expanded the NSA’s surveillance purview last year - but the NSA has chosen to go much further.

The Times noted that the NSA may have spied on one congressman without a court warrant.

This is the only chance that this latest crime might get at least some fleeting attention on Capitol Hill.

The lack of response to these NSA spying outrages is a great example of how cowardly the media has become and how clueless many, if not most, Americans are. The media even refused to make a hubbub last year when it was revealed that the NSA had been wiretapping reporters without a warrant. Author James Bamford pointed out late last year that 2 Israeli companies are at the core of carrying out NSA surveillance on a subcontracting basis. But Bamford’s revelation have received almost no coverage in the print media. (Bamford is one of the most highly-respected critics of the NSA).

On Katherine Albrecht Radio Show Today (4/16) at 5 pm Eastern

1:37 pm | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bovard | Surveillance | Comments: 0

I will be interviewed on Internet radio today at 5 pm by Katherine Albrecht, the author of the influential expose Spychips and a leading anti-surveillance activist.

You can listen live here [click on Stream 2]

The show will also be available for 24 hours here. [click on 0416092.mp3 ]

Tuesday 14th April 2009

Podcast/MP3 of Interview with KOA’s Mike Rosen Today

2:07 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 0

Check online here for a podcast/MP3 of the interview today with KOA talk show host Mike Rosen on AmeriCorps and mandatory service.

Maybe today’s show will help AmeriCorps reach its 2009 goals for Colorado recruiting.

Wednesday 8th April 2009

MP3 of Today’s Brian Wilson Interview on AmeriCorps Etc.

7:18 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 0

Brian Wilson and I had a fun time today paying tribute to editorial writers, politicians, and AmeriCorps volunteers.

You can listen or download the Mp3 or podcast here.

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