Archive for May 2010
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Monday 31st May 2010
New Yorker’s Disgraceful Embrace of Government Coverups
2:59 pm | Lying | Secrecy | Comments: 3
from a New Yorker article on Wikileaks’ heroic Julian Paul Assange -
“But, unlike authoritarian regimes, democratic governments hold secrets largely because citizens agree that they should, in order to protect legitimate policy.”
This is one of the biggest crocks in modern history.
Wikileaks is doing more to promote self-government than the vast majority of liberal publications [...]
Memorial Day: Scourge the Lying Politicians…
9:05 am | Attention Deficit Democracy | Lying | Comments: 3
This Memorial Day, the media is doing its usual sacralizing of war. Instead, this should be a day for the ritualized scourging of politicians. During the last 60 years, their lies have resulted in the unnecessary deaths of almost a hundred thousand American soldiers and millions of foreigners.
And yet, people still get teary-eyed [...]
Thursday 27th May 2010
Barr Campaign Manager’s Solomonic Solution to the Ghostwriting Debt
9:28 pm | Bob Barr | wool | Comments: 8
Regarding the lawsuit over the Barr 2008 Presidential Committee’s $47,000 debt to me for ghostwriting Bob Barr’s Lessons in Liberty –
Russ Verney, Bob Barr’s 2008 campaign manager, admitted to the Washington Post that “We owe him some money and we intend to pay it.”
And then Verney came up with the best fundraising idea of the [...]
The Worldwide Downfall of Democracy
10:35 am | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bailout | Bush | Congress | Democracy | Elective Dictatorship | Freedom | Obama | Rule of Law | Surveillance | Comments: 2
From the July issue of the American Conservative - my review of a fine new book -
Global Undemocratic Revolution
Freedom for Sale: Why the World Is Trading Democracy for Security, John Kampfner, Basic Books, 294 pages
By James Bovard
Freedom for Sale is the best synopsis of the recent collapse of restraints on government [...]
Monday 24th May 2010
Welfarization and the Capsizing of Democracy
9:06 am | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bailout | Bush | Congress | Freedom | Obama | Comments: 5
Liberty Central just posted online my analysis of how government handouts subvert self-government…
WELFARIZATION AND THE CAPSIZING OF DEMOCRACY
by Jim Bovard
The Founding Fathers intended that America be composed of self-reliant individuals who would not hesitate to pull the reins in on their rulers. However, in the past 75 years, the soaring number of government dependents [...]
Friday 21st May 2010
Obama and Attention Deficit Democracy
10:15 am | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bailout | Democracy | Obama | Comments: 5
for the Future of Freedom Foundation today….
OBAMA AND ATTENTION DEFICIT DEMOCRACY
by James Bovard
In his commencement address at the University of Michigan on May 1, President Obama warned that public ignorance subverts self-government. Obama declared: “When we don’t pay close attention to the decisions made by our leaders, when we fail to educate ourselves about [...]
Orient Express to Hell
9:11 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 0
The Freeman posted online today my article from their June issue about my 1987 excursion to Europe’s worst tyranny. I never trusted fat communist guards with submachine guns….
A couple weeks after I returned, the New York Times published a piece of mine headlined, “Economic Collapse: Eastern Europe: The New Third World” - available here. [...]
Wednesday 19th May 2010
Podcast of my Radio Interview with Scott Horton of Antiwar.Com
8:29 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 0
Antiwar.com’s Scott Horton and I had a good time whipping up on the bad guys in this interview. Until we talked, I hadn’t realized that Scott was the Kingmaker in Kentucky.
Here’s Scott’s thumbnail of the 25 minute interview: James Bovard, author of Attention Deficit Democracy, discusses Bill Clinton’s definition of terrorism: when regular [...]
Tuesday 18th May 2010
“Misplaced Words” - the New Defense for Political Lying
9:59 pm | Democracy | Lying | wool | Comments: 5
The New York Times on Monday night nailed Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal for lying about claiming to have served in Vietnam. Blumental, a Senate candidate, responded indignantly. Here’s the update to the story:
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, a Democrat running for the United States Senate, said on Tuesday that he took “full [...]
Friday 14th May 2010
Counterpunch: Operation Tarmac
11:05 am | Ashcroft | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bush | FBI | Justice Department | Lying | Patriot Act | Transportation Security Admin. | Comments: 1
From Counterpunch -
OPERATION TARMAC
by James Bovard
…..
Unfortunately, few people recognize the political racketeering involved in the post–9/11 roundups of airport workers. That practically ensures that, if there is another major terrorist attack or some similar debacle, mass arrests will once again be used to burnish the government’s image.
Thursday 13th May 2010
The Feds’ Post-9/11 Purge of Airport Workers
12:03 pm | Ashcroft | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bush | Lying | Transportation Security Admin. | Comments: 1
From the Future of Freedom Foundation’s Freedom Daily (February 2010)…
American travelers are at far greater risk from weasely cabinet secretaries than from fast-food workers. Operation Tarmac illustrated how “retail” lying is dangerous and can result in a prison sentence — while “wholesale” lying is a steppingstone to fame and greater power.
The Feds’ Post-9/11 Airport [...]
Tuesday 11th May 2010
Atlanta’s Creative Loafing Newspaper Covers the Barr Ghostwriting Lawsuit
11:33 am | Bob Barr | Uncategorized | Comments: 0
From Creative Loafing, a weekly paper in the Atlanta area (with the second-highest circulation of any paper in Georgia) :
Barr ghostwriter finds promoting liberty doesn’t pay
May 10, 2010 at 3:58 pm by Scott Henry in News
Bob Barr, the GOP congressman-turned-Libertarian presidential candidate (and CL columnist-turned-AJC columnist) is being sued by the ghostwriter of his [...]
Monday 10th May 2010
American Conservative on the Barr ‘08 Ghostwriting Lawsuit
12:32 pm | Bob Barr | Comments: 3
Editor Kelly Jane Torrance, in a post titled, “Reading Lessons”:
“Bob Barr Lessons in Liberty #1 Pay Your Ghostwriter” is how Jim Bovard headlines his post announcing that he’s suing the former Libertarian Party presidential candidate. There might be a bigger lesson here, though: If you don’t want people to know you didn’t write your [...]
Kagan: Obama’s Latest Civil Liberties Disaster
8:26 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 0
Once again, when Obama had a chance to take a strong stand in favor of the Constitution, he took a dive.
His nomination of somemone for the Supreme Court who shirked the most controversial moral and legal issues of the war on terror is appalling.
Glenn Greenwald has had the best analysis I’ve seen on the reasons [...]
Friday 7th May 2010
Vanity Fair on the Ghostwriting Lawsuit
7:07 pm | Bob Barr | Comments: 1
VANITY FAIR Books
Former Libertarian Party Presidential Candidate Bob Barr Sued by His Own Ghostwriter
by Juli Weiner May 7, 2010, 5:15 PM
Bob Barr is in such trouble with his own ghostwriter, whom he has neglected to pay for two years. The book in question is called Lessons in Liberty—not to be confused with the actual [...]
Washington Post on the Barr Campaign Ghostwriting Lawsuit
2:07 pm | Bob Barr | Uncategorized | Comments: 0
David Weigel, the Washington Post’s “Right Now” columnist/blogger (covering conservatives and the Republican Party), posted the following today on the lawsuit against the Barr 2008 Presidential Committee:
The former congressman from Georgia who joined the Libertarian Party and became its 2008 presidential candidate gets some unwelcome attention from Jim Bovard, a prolific libertarian writer [...]
Bob Barr’s “Lessons in Liberty” #1: Pay Your Ghostwriter
8:17 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 18
Bob Barr has once again made history. His is the only U.S. presidential campaign to ever be sued by its ghostwriter.
In June 2008, after Bob Barr captured the Libertarian Party nomination for presidential candidate, his campaign manager, Russ Verney, requested that I ghostwrite a campaign book. We came to terms, I wrote [...]
Tuesday 4th May 2010
Obama Makes a Joke About Predator Carnage
5:21 pm | Obama | Uncategorized | War crimes | Comments: 17
So now Obama, like Bush, has made a “joke” that views policies that resulted in killing innocent foreign civilians as fodder for mirth at the White House Correspondents Dinner.
Obama at that dinner on Saturday night:
“The Jonas Brothers are here; they’re out there somewhere. Sasha and Malia are huge fans. But boys, don’t get [...]
Monday 3rd May 2010
Audit the Fed Dammit
2:07 pm | Democracy | Elective Dictatorship | Ron Paul | Rule of Law | Comments: 7
Nation magazine columnist John Nichols has an excellent piece today on why Obama should reverse his position and support Auditing the Fed. Nichols mentions that Sen. Bernie Sanders will offer an amendment this week to attach ‘Audit the Fed’ to the so-called banking regulation reform bill:
The Sanders amendment would require the Fed to [...]