Archive for December 2005
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Friday 30th December 2005
Did Bush Personally Choose Torture Methods?
3:19 pm | Bovard | Bush | Central Intelligence Agency | Rule of Law | Torture | dictatorship | Comments: 1
The Washington Post has another excellent piece today on how the Bush administration exempted the CIA from the Rule of Law after 9/11. Bush issued edicts permitting the CIA “to maintain secret prisons abroad” and “to use interrogation methods that some lawyers say violate international treaties,” among other new powers.
John Radsan, assistant general counsel at [...]
Thursday 29th December 2005
Elective Dictatorship & Lese Majeste
11:02 am | Bovard | Bush | Justice Department | dictatorship | lese majeste | padilla | Comments: 2
The Bush administration is throwing a snit fit because a formerly submissive federal appeals court is not allowing it to change the rules of the game one more time on the Jose Padilla case. Bush’s Justice Department angrily protested to a federal appeals court this week that “there is no basis for questioning the good [...]
Monday 26th December 2005
Donlan’s Courageous Barron’s Editorial on Impeachment
8:47 pm | Barron's | Bovard | Donlan | Impeachment | Wiretapping | Comments: 4
Tom Donlan, editorial page editor of Barron’s, has an excellent editorial on Bush’s illegal wiretaps:
“Administration lawyers and the president himself have tortured the Constitution and extracted a suspension of the separation of powers.”Â
“Putting the president above the Congress is an invitation to tyranny. The president has no powers except those specified in the Constitution and [...]
Thursday 22nd December 2005
“Strength� & “Gravitas,� - or, Nitwits on Parade
7:50 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 1
The creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — a vast amalgamation of 22 agencies and 170,000 government workers - has been one of President Bush’s biggest bragging points. The Washington Post published the first of a series today on how DHS has been a pathetic farce since the day it was created.
In the [...]
Wednesday 21st December 2005
How Federal Screwups Entitled Bush to Absolute Power
7:01 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 2
In his radio address last week, Bush justified warrantless wiretaps by invoking the case of two 9/11 hijackers whom the feds failed to trace before the attacks. Bush declared, ”
Two of the terrorist hijackers who flew a jet into the Pentagon, Nawaf al Hamzi and Khalid al Mihdhar, communicated while they were in the United [...]
Tuesday 20th December 2005
Bush, Conservatives, & Freedom
10:10 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 2
Bush administration policies are establishing the conservative standard for freedom for the coming generation. Few presidents have invoked freedom more often than Bush, and none in recent decades has shown such open contempt for the Rule of Law. His proclamation of a right to spy on American citizens without even a retroactive rubberstamp warrant from [...]
Monday 19th December 2005
Ethics in Washington: Maiming vs. Massaging
1:05 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 2
Republicans in Congress are pushing to make handjobs a federal crime. Well, not all of ‘em - just the paid variety. (Dinners, or even multiple happy hour drinks,  are still apparently legal tender for such barter). Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) is pushing legislation to provide federal grants to state and local law enforcement to target men [...]
Friday 16th December 2005
Another Torture Charade
12:31 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 0
It is amusing to see the media’s hosannahs over the Bush administration’s agreement to accept the McCain amendment to purportedly prohibit U.S. government officials from torturing people.
This will be only one more provision in the statute book.
Unless someone can find a way to make the Bush administration to obey the law, then passing another law is [...]
Contact Info
12:25 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 1
For further info on my work, check out http://www.jimbovard.com
My email address is jbovard@his.com
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Thursday 15th December 2005
The Media & Another No-Cost Federal Killing
3:15 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 2
An article of mine on how the news media is whitewashing the Air Marshals shooting last week of Rigoberto Alpizar was posted today by Editor and Publisher
The final paragraph:  Perhaps if Alpizar had regularly attended Georgetown dinner parties, the media would show more curiosity about his fate. In the old days, Americans were taught that the [...]
Wednesday 14th December 2005
More Subway Shootings?
10:37 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 1
Federal Air Marshals will begin riding on the Washington subway and other subway systems, traveling covert as part of a new program to “counter potential criminal terrorist activity in all modes of transportation,” according to an internal federal document reported in the Washington Post.  Apparently, non-criminal terrorists have nothing to fear.
David Adams, the spokesman for [...]
Tuesday 13th December 2005
The Patriot Act Renewal Tramples Free Speech
10:48 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 1
The Bush team and their congressional allies are in the final stages of jamming a Patriot Act reauthorization act into law.Â
The reauthorization bill will give the feds new power to suppress Americans’ speech. The Act contains a provision that will empower the Secret Service to forcibly expand the Free Speech Zones that have blighted dissent when [...]
Monday 12th December 2005
Death Spiral of American Democracy?
4:14 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 1
Is American democracy in a death spiral? Do we now have democracy only in form - akin to the Soviet-era “People’s Democracies” where governments won every election? Will the combination of mass ignorance, lying politicians, and boundless government power be fatal to our remaining freedoms?
These are some of the questions examined in my new book, Attention [...]