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Thursday 24th July 2008

The George W. Bush Memorial Library

This is floating around the Internet; LawHobbit sent it to me, and it is too good not to post. If anyone knows the original source, let me know and I will properly credit it.
****
The George W Bush Presidential Library is now in the planning stages. The Library will include:
The Hurricane Katrina Room, which is still [...]

Wednesday 23rd July 2008

Daniel Ellsberg’s Lessons for Our Time

10:53 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 0

The Future of Freedom Foundation posted online today an article of mine from the May issue of Freedom Daily. Without further adieu….
ELLSBERG’S LESSONS FOR OUR TIME
by James Bovard
Daniel Ellsberg is the kind of American who should receive a Medal of Freedom. Except that the Medals of Freedom are distributed by presidents who routinely give them [...]

Thursday 10th July 2008

FISA Bashing on Antiwar.com Radio

9:01 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 3

Scott Horton of Antiwar.com RADIO and I chatted about FISA and other obscenities on Tuesday. The MP3 is now online and accessible here.
Scott came up with a zippety title for the interview - “Attention Deficit Police State.”
Scott was spooked when I told him the FBI has added skateboarding as a warning sign for its latest updates to the terrorist [...]

Tuesday 8th July 2008

The Virtual Iran War Resolution

9:57 pm | Attention Deficit Democracy | Terrorism | Uncategorized | Comments: 5

This is one of those times that I realize how deficient the English language is in profanity. Congressmen deserve far worse hammering than the vernacular allows.
Congress may vote for a resolution this week that would be a de facto declaration of war on Iran. Iran poses no peril to the U.S. mainland. But since the U.S. [...]

Saturday 5th July 2008

Kent Snyder, RIP

11:23 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 0

Kent Snyder, the head of Ron Paul’s Liberty Study Committee and Ron’s right-hand man for much of the last 20 years, passed away last week.
I first recall meeting him when he invited me to talk to a regular dinner that congressman Paul held for fellow-minded members of Congress in the late 1990s. Kent was both [...]

Monday 23rd June 2008

George Carlin, RIP

12:33 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 10

George Carlin was one of the most penetrating political commentators of the last half century. He was fearless and merciless to frauds and political con men. He was also a master of the English language.
He was an inspiration and he will be missed.
He had the best thumbnail summary of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal: “Kennedy aimed high. Marilyn [...]

Thursday 29th May 2008

Ron Paul’s Good News

10:08 pm | Attention Deficit Democracy | Uncategorized | Comments: 3

Antiwar.com Radio yesterday posted a very informative interview between Charles Goyette and Ron Paul. At about 10 minutes into the interview, Goyette asked Congressman Paul about my comment on the blog regarding negotiations with the Republican party for a speaking slot at the Republican Convention in September convention.
Congressman Paul replied: “I don’t know where he [...]

Sunday 11th May 2008

Ellsberg’s Excellent Memoir

4:24 pm | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bovard | Uncategorized | Comments: 2

My latest article in Freedom Daily is “Ellsberg’s Lesson for Our Time.” I should have read Daniel Ellsberg’s excellent memoirs - SECRETS: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers - long ago. But better late than never.
Here is the lead of the article:
Daniel Ellsberg is the kind of American who should receive a Medal [...]

Tuesday 6th May 2008

AmeriCorps’ Latest Triumphs

7:58 am | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bovard | Uncategorized | Comments: 1

The current issue of Ripon Forum includes a piece I wrote on the case against AmeriCorps and other national service boondoggles. The Forum is published by the Ripon Society, an organization of liberal Republicans founded in 1965. The same issue of the magazine features articles by Bob Dole, George HW Bush, and Chris Shays. I [...]

Tuesday 15th April 2008

Ron Paul Supporters Rally at Capitol

5:00 pm | Bovard | Ron Paul | Uncategorized | Comments: 11

A couple hundred Ron Paul supporters gathered in front of the Capitol today to hear speakers @organized by the Granny Warriors.
I stopped by mid afternoon. I was told by one attendee that “Ron Paul came by and spoke around 11:15. Unfortunately, the sound system was not yet working at that point.” He said he had [...]

Wednesday 9th April 2008

Martial Law Act of 2006

The Future of Freedom Foundation today posted online my article from the January 2008 issue of Freedom Daily on Martial Law. Without further ado…
The Martial Law Act of 2006
by James Bovard
Martial law is perhaps the ultimate stomping of freedom. And yet, on September 30, 2006, Congress passed a provision in a 591-page bill that will make [...]

Sunday 17th February 2008

Brian Wilson Sweeps Ohio

1:01 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 3

Actually, maybe ‘cleans up Toledo’ would be a more accurate headline.
The Toledo Blade, a newspaper that Brian has treated with the same affection that Nixon lavished on the Washington Post, has a hefty, mostly glowing profile of Brian today here. I’m glad to see his superb talent getting recognized in print.
I was not aware [...]

Wednesday 31st October 2007

LIVE ONLINE Thursday morning 10 a.m. - Charles Goyette Show

9:26 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 1

I will be on the Charles Goyette show on Thursday (11/01) at 10:05 a.m Eastern time. Charles is one of the best talk show hosts in the biz - and he is gung-ho pro-freedom. We will be talking about torture and other Bush legacies. .
If you are in Phoenix or much of Arizona, you can [...]

Saturday 22nd September 2007

Complete Text, Syrian Review of Bush Betrayal

9:12 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 11

Sate Hamza, a Syrian doctor and professor now living in Canada, kindly tracked down and translated the September 17 full review of Bush Betrayal in the Syrian newspaper Al-Thawrah from Arabic into English.
He emailed this around 4 a.m. this morning:
I found the original review at the following URL:
http://thawra.alwehda.gov.sy/_archive.asp?FileName=55888278520070916222749
http://tinyurl.com/2aum3r
Here is a full English translation of it:
The “World President’s” [...]

Tuesday 14th August 2007

Will Torture Bring Down Bush?

10:31 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 15

The American Conservative posted online my article from their July 30 issue on why the torture scandal may finish off the Bush administration.
BREAKING BUSH’S RESISTANCE American Conservative July 30, 2007
by James Bovard
From the first days after the Abu Ghraib photos hit the airwaves, the torture scandal has epitomized the worst of the Bush presidency. A [...]

Tuesday 17th April 2007

A Playful Flashback on Shafting Taxpayers

8:49 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 9

Tax Day has always been special for me. The following is a piece I wrote back in the waning days fo the Reagan administration to spur positive thinking on the IRS and Uncle Sam.
The New York Times April 13, 1988
HEADLINE: Your Tax Dollars At Work And Play
BYLINE: By James Bovard
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
Congratulations. You probably are about to make your [...]

Wednesday 31st January 2007

Toledo Mayor “Squeals Like a Pig”

5:37 pm | Bovard | Uncategorized | Comments: 8

Talk show host Brian Wilson added another notch to his holster (or whatever) today.
A federal judge slapped a permanent injunction on mayor Carty Finkbeiner (don’t blame me, I didn’t make the name up) and the city of Toledo.
Unfortunately, Wilson doesn’t drink beer, so he will not be celebrating properly tonight.
Here are some details from the [...]

My Amazon Profile Page

10:55 am | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bovard | Uncategorized | Comments: 7

Amazon has started creating profile pages for authors, including links to all of their books offered by Amazon. My profile page is here.
Several of my books are also for sale at the Laissez-Faire Books website here.
Amazon is not carrying Arabic works (as far as I know). The Arabic language version of Bush Betrayal is available [...]

Monday 29th January 2007

Subversive Photos from the DC Antiwar Rally 1/27/07

SEE PHOTO BELOW (@#$# software)
This was my favorite photo from Saturday’s demonstration. Where is the Secret Service when you need it?
I have 10 other photos posted at http://www.flickr.com/photos/bovard/
I am tottering on the edge of getting the hang of some of this modern technology.
UPDATE 1/30: The Flickr page with the “Bush Swings by Congress” photo has [...]

Sunday 28th January 2007

Photos from Saturday’s Antiwar Demo

At Saturday’s antiwar demo in DC, it was good to see lots of folks fed up with Bush’s BS. And there were lots of great signs and comic relief.
I am in the process of loading my photos from the demo here. I will get more shots up tomorrow morning.
Claire Wolfe kindly posted several of my fav shots on her site this [...]

Thursday 18th January 2007

LIVE ONLINE Friday (1/19) at 4:30 PM Eastern on Brian Wilson Show

Brian Wilson and I will be thrashing the Bush adminsitration’s latest dodges regarding its illegal surveillance tomorrow afternoon.
You can listen live here
Brian has been doing a great job whupping up on the mayor of Toledo, revealing the rascal as a two-bit censorship hack. There’s a photo of Brian here just before he smashed down the door [...]

Tuesday 16th January 2007

“Close Enough for Government Work” Torture

12:59 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 18

A newly-released Pentagon-funded study entitled “Educing Information” examines the “concerns about recent U.S. interrogation activities, subsequent investigations, and the efficacy of contemporary tactics, techniques, and procedures.”
Surprise, surprise: the U.S. government has little or no idea what it is doing when it tries to beat the truth out of people. A Washington Post story on the study [...]

Tuesday 9th January 2007

Surge & Dictatorship

8:54 am | Uncategorized | Comments: 44

The real issue in Bush’s speech Wednesday night is not the additional troops he intends to send to Iraq. The real issue is his nearly open proclamation of dictatorial powers.
Apparently, once a president lies a nation into war, he is entitled to absolute power for as long as he chooses. Regardless of how many Americans [...]

Thursday 4th January 2007

The Perils of Emergency Power

11:32 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 12

Freedom Daily September 2006 (posted online January 2007)
The Perils of Emergency Power
by James Bovard
The New York Times reported on June 23 that President Bush invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to justify warrantless searches of Americans’ and other people’s financial data. According to Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levey, the U.S. government may have conducted “hundreds [...]

Tuesday 2nd January 2007

What if Nixon had been Hanged?

3:28 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 38

Seeing the rave reviews on how Iraqis will benefit from the hanging of Saddam Hussein, and hearing the late Gerald Ford lauded today to the heavens, I can’t help wondering how American history might have changed if Richard Nixon had been hanged.
Of course, I’m not suggesting Nixon should have been hanged by a lynch mob. [...]

Thanks to Folks who Commented Here in ‘06!

12:39 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 22

I want to thank people whose comments enriched and enlivened this blog last year. I learned a lot from individuals who offered their thoughts on political events and on my writings.
This era of torture and military tribunals can be plenty grim at times, and the belly laughs I got from from witty comments around the world [...]

Wednesday 27th December 2006

On Texas Radio & the Internet Thursday (12/28) 11 A.M. Eastern time

7:09 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 5

One more time: I’ll be on WBAP - the 50,000 watt Texas radio station - Thursday at 11 a.m Eastern. Brian Wilson (guest hosting for Mark Davis) and I will banter about the year in review. My cynicism may provoke some lively rebuttals from Dallas area callers….
You can listen live on the Internet here. The [...]

Monday 25th December 2006

LISTEN LIVE on Brian Wilson Show Tuesday (12/26) at Noon Eastern

12:46 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 6

MERRY CHRISTMAS, FOLKS! This is a great day to count one’s blessings.
Brian Wilson, one of the best talk show hosts in the country, invited me on his show tomorrow (Tuesday, 12/26) at Noon eastern. Should be plenty of laughs, giving a chance for holiday season curtsies to George W.
He will be guest hosting on WBAP, [...]

Saturday 23rd December 2006

America’s Best Political Philosopher?

12:28 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 29

SEE BELOW (@#%&@ blog software glitch):
Dilbert today is worth triple its weight in Harvard political philosophers. Scott Adams is no boot-burnisher.
This cartoon cuts to the heart of the fraud of contemporary democracy.
I am amused to hear talk of politicians having mandates when voters had a choice of squirrel abusers or secretary stranglers.
Amazing that there is far more truth [...]

Thursday 21st December 2006

George W. Bush, MAN OF THE YEAR

10:46 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 7

Reason.com is doing a feature on Man of the Year. Here’s my 2 cents:
George W. Bush is Man of the Year for vindicating cynics everywhere. Bush’s trumpeting of his illegal wiretaps and his championing of torture should quash mindless idealism about democracy. Bush capped off the year by impaling the Bill of Rights on the Military [...]

Sunday 17th December 2006

Iraqi Justice Coming to USA?

12:32 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 20

The New York Times has a great piece today on sham justice in Iraq. The US military now holds almost twice as many Iraqi detainees as it did when the Abu Ghraib scandal broke. The U.S. set up a Central Criminal Court in Baghdad that usually has a Soviet-like disregard for due process. The system [...]

Monday 11th December 2006

Split Decision on Amazon

11:34 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 6

I was browsing the Amazon pages for a few of my books and noted some new reviews with varying perspectives.
Here’s one reader’s thoughts on Attention Deficit Democracy:

A fine contribution to the growing literature of liberty, November 2, 2006

Reviewer:
James Carpenter (Pennsville, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

James Bovard’s Attention Deficit Democracy is an engaging, [...]

Friday 8th December 2006

American Conservative: Bush’s Torture/Dictatorship Scandal

2:21 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 52

Here is the full text of my piece on the Military Commissions Act & the torture scandal from the December 18, 2006 issue of the American Conservative.
It is good to see the screws tightening on some of these Bush rascals. This scandal could put an end to Bush II. [Comments Welcome at the End of [...]

The Fair Trade Fraud at 15

12:27 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 6

The front page of the Washington Post this morning shows a tearful photo of a Pearl Harbor veteran and others at ceremonies commemorating the 65th anniversary of the ‘day of infamy.’
That photo reminded me that, 15 years ago, I was being derided as a Japanese agent. (Yes, I did have a history before being labeled an Islamo-fascist [...]

Thursday 7th December 2006

Governments as Pathological Lying Screw-ups

1:40 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 4

The fine folks at the Foundation for Economic Education used another article of mine from the last century as their “timely classic” today. I enjoyed writing this piece even though it disqualified me from receiving an Exemplary Idealist Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty - September 1999
Vol. 49 No. 9
Political Accounting
By James [...]

Wednesday 6th December 2006

The Great Gold Robbery

4:41 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 9

The Foundation for Economic Education featured as their “timely classic” today a 1999 article I did for their Freeman magazine on The Great Gold Robbery. Here’s the piece -
The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty - June 1999
The Great Gold Robbery
By James Bovard
James Bovard is the author of Freedom in Chains: The Rise of the State and [...]

Sunday 3rd December 2006

Bush’s Torture Ticking Time Bomb

8:50 pm | Uncategorized | Comments: 5

The American Conservative ran my piece on the Military Commissions Act and how the torture scandal may finish off the Bush presidency in their December 18, 2006 issue.
My impression is that the full article will be online soon. Here’s the lead and conclusion:
Sins of Commission
By James Bovard
Have Republicans become the party of torture, secret prisons, [...]

Thursday 2nd November 2006

Another Shot at Ruby Ridge

10:12 am | Bovard | Uncategorized | Comments: 6

Kimberly Atkins, a reporter for the Boston Herald, called me yesterday regarding Deval Patrick, the Democratic candidate for governor in Massachusetts. Patrick played a notorious role in the Ruby Ridge scandal, overruling a Justice Department panel regarding FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi. Horiuchi was the guy who gunned down Vicki Weaver as she held her baby [...]

Wednesday 1st November 2006

Email Bovard Address is Down - Alternative Email Address

2:03 pm | Bovard | Uncategorized | Comments: 0

My usual email address - jim@jimbovard.com is not functioning today.
My older email address is working - jbovard@his.com
I will spare readers the obligatory profanity regarding this ISP screwup.
Thanks for folks who notified me that their mail to the jimbovard.com address was bouncing back to them.

Monday 9th October 2006

Bush’s Signing Statement Dictatorship

The fine folks at Future of Freedom Foundation posted today a piece I did on Bush’s endless nullifications of federal law.
The longer he reigns, the more difficult it is to give Bush the benefit of the doubt.
Bush’s Signing Statement Dictatorship
by James Bovard, October 9, 2006
President Bush has once again decreed that his personal pen is [...]

Monday 11th September 2006

How the U.S. Media Helps Subvert U.S. Democracy

9:52 am | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bovard | Uncategorized | Comments: 12

The Globalist
U.S. DEMOCRACY & THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA
by James Bovard August 10, 2006
U.S. policies have received a lot of criticism in recent years — not just at home, but also around the world. According to Jim Bovard, author of “Attention Deficit Democracy,” one of the key reasons is that the Washington press corps has too [...]

Thursday 17th August 2006

Justice Dept. Appeals Ruling on “No Hereditary Kings”

Federal judge Anna Diggs Taylor declared in a ruling today: “We must first note that the Office of the Chief Executive has itself been created, with its powers, by the Constitution. There are no hereditary Kings in America and no power not created by the Constitution. So all ‘inherent power’ must derive from that Constitution.”
The Justice Department [...]

Sunday 13th August 2006

Paving the Way to War with Iran

Israel’s war on Lebanon is a warm-up for the U.S. war on Iran.
That is the message of Seymour Hersh’s latest superb article in the New Yorker. Hersh reveals that the Bush administration was “closely involved” in planning Israel’s attacks on Lebanon. A former senior intelligence official informed Hersh that, beginning this Spring, “planners from the [...]

Sunday 30th July 2006

Qana Last Time: “Just a bunch of [dead] Arabs.”

Israeli government public relations encountered a significant challenge today when the IDF killed dozens of children in the same location that they killed more than a hundred civilians a decade ago. The fact that both attacks occurred in Qana, Lebanon is the sort of thing that might make even a newspaper correspondent look into Israel’s prior history [...]

Thursday 27th July 2006

Israeli Justice Minister: IDF entitled to Kill Everyone in South Lebanon

8:47 am | Bovard | Uncategorized | Comments: 6

From the BBC today:
Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon “said that in order to prevent casualties among Israeli soldiers battling Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon, villages should be flattened by the Israeli air force before ground troops moved in.
He added that Israel had given the civilians of southern Lebanon ample time to quit the area and [...]

Thursday 20th July 2006

The Radio Interview on Israel-Lebanon is Now Online

10:33 pm | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bovard | Uncategorized | Comments: 5

My interview this morning with Charles Goyette is now online here.

Wednesday 19th July 2006

LISTEN LIVE ONLINE - Thursday (7/20) 10 am Eastern - I’m on Charles Goyette Show

I will be on the Charles Goyette show at 10 AM Eastern time Thursday (7/20). Charles is now on KFNX, 1100 AM - available via the dial all over AZ and surrounding turf, and via the Internet all over the world (except West Virginia). Listen live online here.
We will be discussing the history of Israeli action in Lebanon, keying [...]

Conservatives’ Treason on Free Speech

3:55 pm | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bush | Uncategorized | Comments: 3

The American Conservative placed my piece on ‘Conservatives’ Treason on Free Speech’ online today.
Here’s the lead and the close -
July 31, 2006

Our Dangerous Times
Today’s conservatives are eager to trade freedom for security.
by James Bovard
On June 23, the New York Times and other papers revealed that the Bush administration has been vacuuming up records passing through [...]

Speaking in Arlington, VA Thursday (7/20) night

1:26 pm | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bovard | Uncategorized | Comments: 0

I will be discussing Attention Deficit Democracy as part of a panel (along with Reason magazine managing editor Jesse Walker and Elizabethtown College professor Paul Gottfried) at a meeting of the Robert Taft Club on Thursday night, July 20.
The show starts at 7 pm at the offices (probably the roof) of the Leadership Institute, located next [...]

Monday 10th July 2006

LISTEN LIVE - on New Hampshire/Vermont radio Wed. (7/12) Noon

9:21 pm | Attention Deficit Democracy | Bovard | Uncategorized | Comments: 0

I will be on the Gardner Goldsmith at Noon Eastern time on Wednesday. You can listen live here or listen on air on 1010 AM or 99.7 FM. I think this is available throughout New Hampshire & much of Vermont. Gardner may also be on some other stations in that area.
Gardner is full of fire [...]

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