From the Future of Freedom Foundation (October 2013) VOTING RIGHTS AS BOGUS PANACEAS by James Bovard The Supreme Court struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act last June. “Liberals” were horrified and reacted as if the Civil War had been fought in vain. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsburg denounced the decision for […]
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My 2007 FFF Speech Transcript: Foreign Warring vs. American Freedom
Here is the transcript from my speech on “How Foreign Warring Subverts Freedom at Home” from the June 2007 The Future of Freedom Foundation conference on Restoring the Republic. This has lots of remarks about the NSA scandal, torture, the suspension of habeas corpus, and other cheerful topics. There were some excellent questions after the speech […]
My 2008 FFF Speech: Bush’s War on Civil Liberties – Transcript
The Future of Freedom Foundation is producing transcripts from its 2007 and 2008 conferences. Following is the text of my speech at their June 2008 conference, “Restoring the Republic 2008: Foreign Policy & Civil Liberties” held in Reston, Virginia. My opening bit about having lunch with Homeland Security czar Mike Chertoff and getting the scoop on […]
Nixon’s Resignation & the Era of Lawless Presidents
This is the anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974. Nixon knew that his defense was doomed and chose to throw in the towel without a Senate trial. But President Gerald Ford compounded the damage from Nixon’s presidency when he issued a sweeping pardon of Nixon that practically condemned future generations of Americans to […]
Obama, NSA, Gulf of Tonkin, & Governing as Lying
This is the 49th anniversary of Congress’s passage of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, by which the Lyndon Johnson administration lied the nation into the Vietnam War. The resolution was spurred by false assertions of multiple North Vietnamese attacks on U.S. ships. At a National Security Council meeting on the evening that the first report came […]
Bravo Rand Paul – the only ‘No’ vote for new FBI Chief
Sen. Rand Paul was the only senator to vote against confirming James Comey as the new FBI director. The final vote was 93 to 1 – so nobody was crowding Rand on the high ground. As the ACLU noted last month, “While Comey deserves credit for stopping an illegal spying program in dramatic fashion, he […]
My 2006 Book Review on Warrantless Wiretapping Scandal
Here’s my 2006 review of the James Risen book that ignited the first uproar about the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping. I noted: James Risen’s revelations on pervasive National Security Agency warrantless spying on Americans shred the final pretenses to legality of the Bush administration. Now the debate is simply whether, as Bush and his supporters […]