Archive for July 2009
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Thursday 30th July 2009
Latest “Trust Us” Heap of Nonsense [Swine Flu Vaccine]
9:30 pm | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bovard | Comments: 6
There’s a priceless headline on Reuters this evening:
“Is it safe? U.S. vaccine experts want to build trust”
The Centers for Disease Control are working overtime to assure people that they have nothing to fear from the new @untested new vaccines created in response to government proclamations on swine flu.
And the most important part of assuring that [...]
Wednesday 29th July 2009
Other Outrageous Terrorism Prosecutions
2:53 pm | Ashcroft | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bush Betrayal | Rule of Law | Terrorism | Comments: 5
I appreciate the thoughtful emails on the Lackawanna Six article. Unfortunately, the proseuction in that case was par for the Bush-era domestic war on terrorism. Here’s a piece from the American Conservative during Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign…..
Undue Process
American Conservative October 11, [...]
Tuesday 28th July 2009
Martial Law and the War on Terrorism
11:16 am | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bovard | Bush | Cheney | Terrorism | dictatorship | Comments: 5
The Future of Freedom Foundation is shotgunning out the following oped today….
***
Martial Law and the War on Terrorism
Or “One White House Memo Away From Dictatorship”
by James Bovard
The New York Times reported last week that the Bush administration considered sending in the U.S. military to arrest the so-called Lackawanna Six in 2002. [...]
Now on Facebook
10:06 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 0
I now have a page on Facebook- available at http://www.facebook.com/jim.bovard
If you’re not already a member of Facebook, it is not worth joining to see my page. Most of the information on that page will be posted here as well.
Facebook has a dreadful record on privacy. I don’t trust it as far [...]
Friday 24th July 2009
Washington Post Condemns Open Government [Audit the Fed]
12:45 pm | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bovard | Ron Paul | Comments: 3
Today’s Washington Post contains an editorial that warns that Ron Paul’s “Audit the Fed” bill could end civilized life as we know it.
Well, they didn’t go quite that far - but the editorial reads like it was written in a puddle of sweat.
The Washington Post pretends to take the high ground - and ignores [...]
On Glenn Beck TV Show today (7/24)
12:27 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 0
I am scheduled for a 3-5 minute interview on the Glenn Beck TV show on Fox News today sometime between 5 and 5:30.
Topic will be AmeriCorps.
The TV sched can change at the last minute, but it is currently on the lineup.
Wednesday 22nd July 2009
Full Text: Barron’s Summer Jobs Boondoggle piece
8:36 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 0
Barron’s put the full text of the article on Summer Jobs online here
MONDAY, JULY 20, 2009 BARRONS
EDITORIAL COMMENTARY
Playing at Work Isn’t Productive
By JAMES BOVARD
LONG BEFORE THE AGE OF OBAMA, FEDERAL SPENDING became the panacea for social problems. Not content with new spending for new ideas, from high-speed passenger-rail services [...]
Monday 20th July 2009
Triple-Hoot Headline: “US Seeks Prison Reform in Afghanistan” [Torture]
9:09 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 2
This is the headline a Voice of America article gave to a story on the New York Times’ article yesterday on how the Pentagon realizes that prison abuses in Afghanistan are fueling the Taliban.
Life is unfair. You beat a few innocent prisoners to death - hanging them from the ceiling by chains, etc. - [...]
Saturday 18th July 2009
Barron’s: Obama’s Make-Work Jobs Harm Teenagers
8:55 am | Attention Deficit Democracy | Barron's | Bovard | Obama | wool | Comments: 1
Barron’s ran an article of mine on summer jobs boondoggles as a guest editorial in the issue hitting teh stands today. Here’s an outtake from the article (a subscription is required to see the full version on the online site).
Playing At Work Isn’t Productive Barron’s July 20, 2009
by James Bovard
LONG BEFORE [...]
Friday 17th July 2009
Torture and Political Science
9:15 am | Torture | dictatorship | Comments: 3
Amazing how few political scientists responded to the last 5 years of revelations about torture by the U.S. government.
But perhaps this merely continues that profession’s perennial habit of ignoring the dark side of Leviathan.
British historian Thomas Macaulay noted in his 1837 essay on Francis Bacon that “he who first treated legislation as [...]
Wednesday 15th July 2009
Will Obama’s Health Reform Lead to a Prison Building Boom?
3:53 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 2
I am starting to wonder if maybe Obama-Care will not make all Americans healthy after all.
Sue Blevins of the Institute for Health Freedom sent out a shotgun email today:
–According to the CBO, the largest federal expense in House health-reform bill is $773 billion federal spending (over 10 years) for federally established insurance exchange subsidies [...]
Tuesday 14th July 2009
Szasz, Now More Than Ever - DSM VI
9:03 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 1
Thomas Szasz has a new book coming out this Fall: ANTIPSYCHIATRY: Quackery Squared. Syracuse University Press summarizes the book:
Szasz rejected, and continues to reject, psychiatry and antipsychiatry with equal vigor. Subsuming his work under the rubric of antipsychiatry betrays and negates it just as surely and effectively as subsuming it under the rubric of [...]
Monday 13th July 2009
My Vindication, Dammit
2:42 pm | Bovard | Comments: 5
I am usually wary of the liberal bias of the New York Times but every now and then they split the bullseye. Like this article:
Cursing and Pain Relief
By Nicholas Bakalar
If you bang your thumb with a hammer, does it really lessen the pain to let loose with a string of curse words? Automatically [...]
Honest Torture Investigations?
9:41 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 5
Ice hockey in hell?
And an honest investigation into all the illegal surveillance schemes uncorked since 2001?
Topless female ice hockey in hell.
But I would be very happy to be proven wrong on this.
The Washington Post noted that the Obama administrationc could appoint a prosecutor who “may look into whether CIA interrogators operated outside the boundaries [...]
Friday 10th July 2009
New York Times’s David Brooks Reveals His Secret for Working Sources
8:51 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 1
New York Times’ op-ed columnist David Brooks wrote about the “dignity code” earlier this week.
And then he confided to a MSNBC host: “I sat next to a Republican senator once at dinner and he had his hand on my inner thigh the whole time. I was like, ehh, get me out of here.”
I wonder [...]
WHOOP WHOOP Quote of the Day - on War Crimes
3:46 pm | Afghanistan | Attention Deficit Democracy | War crimes | Comments: 0
“We believe that anyone suspected of war crimes should be thoroughly investigated.”
So claims an anonymous U.S government official, quoted in a story on the New York Times website today.
Of course, he was referring to an alleged massacre of Taliban prisoners by Afghan Gen. Dostum in Afghanistan in late 2001. (Despite Obama’s victory last November, the [...]
Thursday 9th July 2009
McNamara’s Other “Body Count” Debacle
9:08 am | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bovard | dictatorship | Comments: 4
[an op-ed sent out this morning by the Future of Freedom Foundation]
McNamara’s Other “Body Count” Debacle
by James Bovard, July 9, 2009
Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who died on July 6, was best known for ratcheting up the Vietnam War thanks to the false claims he provided to President Johnson, Congress, and the American people.
Despite [...]
Tuesday 7th July 2009
Porn and Attention Deficit Democracy + UPDATE
10:32 pm | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bovard | Comments: 7
I knew that American culture was in trouble, but this New York Times front page article on the decline of plots in porn movies confirms my deepest fears.
The Times quotes porn actress Savanna Samson, who “said she took her acting seriously and used to prepare studiously for her roles.”
“I used to have dialogue,” said [...]
Monday 6th July 2009
Dead: A War Criminal, a Liar, and a Director of the Washington Post - McNamara
1:06 pm | Attention Deficit Democracy | wool | Comments: 4
In its obituary article on Robert McNamara today, the Washington Post mentions that McNamara was a director of the Washington Post company.
Was that honor bestowed because of McNamara’s lies or because of his war crimes?
Or maybe he was just a really really great dinner guest at the homes of Post editors and owners.
And people [...]
Sunday 5th July 2009
Obama’s Latest Four-Star Howler on Freedom
3:11 pm | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bovard | Obama | Rule of Law | Comments: 0
Prior to his trip to Russia, President Obama issued an appeal to Russian president Dmitri Medvedev to “to strengthen the rule of law in Russia, which of course includes making sure that all those accused of crimes have the right to a fair trial and that the courts are not used for political purposes.”
Of [...]
Friday 3rd July 2009
Today’s Challenge: Find the Non-War Criminals in this Picture!
12:23 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 9
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: 2
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, [...]
Boundless Ignorance vs. Self-Government
8:23 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 4
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, [...]
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 [...]