BOVARD » wool

Archive for wool

The archive page you are viewing contains only excerpts of each post. To view the full post, click on its title.

Thursday 5th January 2012

Persian Gulf Folly Redux (1987)

11:07 am | Iran | Iraq | wool | Comments: 3

Following is a piece I wrote in 1987 on the Reagan administration’s idiotic intervention in the Persian Gulf. Versions of this piece appeared in USA Today and the Detroit News.
JUST ANOTHER AMERICAN SITTING DUCK
by James Bovard
Sentimentality now appears to be the soul of Reagan’s foreign policy. From [...]

The Folly of Attacking Iran

10:14 am | Iran | Lying | wool | Comments: 4

Listening to the half-witted ratcheting up of hostilities by both the U.S. and Iranian governments reminded me of this piece I wrote for the Future of Freedom Foundation in the wake of George W. Bush’s Iraq victory speech. It is difficult to detect a learning curve in Washington in the subsequent 7+ years. Instead, [...]

Wednesday 28th December 2011

“Was James Bovard Bit By a Mailman as a Child?”

3:47 pm | Uncategorized | wool | Comments: 5

The headline was the opening sentence of a letter written to the Los Angeles Times. The writer, Jim Washburn, was so upset that the Times clipped that first sentence from his published response that he posted it on his blog. He commented: “A few days previous, they’d run an op-ed piece by some blowhard named [...]

Wednesday 30th November 2011

Dying to Corrupt Afghanistan

2:21 pm | Afghanistan | Terrorism | wool | Comments: 8

from the Future of Freedom Foundation’s Freedom Daily (posted online today)
Dying to Corrupt Afghanistan
by James Bovard
American soldiers are dying so that Afghan politicians can continue looting U.S. tax dollars. Foreign aid has long been notorious for creating kleptocracies — governments of thieves. The $50+ billion foreign aid that the United States has dumped on [...]

Tuesday 22nd November 2011

Super Committee Was a Fraud from the Get Go

9:37 pm | Attention Deficit Democracy | Lying | wool | Comments: 0

From an interview with Press TV earlier today -
James Bovard, policy advisor for The Future of Freedom Foundation in an interview with Press TV’s U.S. Desk on Tuesday said that “a lot of folks had high expectations from the congressional super committee to reduce the federal deficit. I figured it would be a fraud from [...]

Friday 28th October 2011

MP3 of Playing Whack-A-Federal-Mole on the Brian Wilson Show

WSPD’s Brian Wilson and I had a hoot yesterday flogging hell out of the Patriot Act and its noxious progeny.
Dang, hard to believe this stupid act is 10 years old. It has almost outlived my idealism.
You can listen to or download the show by clicking here brian-wilson-patriot-act-bash-10-27-2011

Wednesday 31st August 2011

Another FBI Terrorist Trainer Bites the Dust

12:49 pm | FBI | Terrorism | wool | Comments: 3

Today’s Washington Post reports details on a guy who the FBI hired to provide expert anti-terrorism training:
William G. Hillar billed himself as a hero and a patriot, a 28-year veteran of the Army Special Forces who shared his knowledge of counterterrorism by holding training sessions for federal agents and local police.
The 66-year-old Millersville man told [...]

Saturday 30th July 2011

MP3 of my Raging Bitch Tribute on Brian Wilson Radio Show

WSPD’s Brian Wilson and I had a rattlin’ good chat yesterday about Declan McCullagh’s excellent article on the House Committee vote to require Internet Service Providers to keep records of every website visited by every customer.
While this provision is currently the hobbyhorse of nitwit conservative Republicans, the Obama administration also supports this vast data [...]

Wednesday 27th July 2011

Debt Limit Talks: “Squeal Like a Pig,” the Establishment Said

Tom Toles’s excellent cartoon below captures the soul of the debt limit talks. Anyone who is not cynical is probably heading for the chopping block.
My good friend and talk show hellraiser extraordinaire Brian Wilson has an excellent article tomorrow at LewRockwell.com on the real meanings behind the key terms flung around in [...]

Monday 25th July 2011

MP3 of Freedom Fest Panel Flogging the War on Terror

Jacob Hornberger, Sheldon Richman, and I had fun flogging the war on terror during a Freedom Fest panel earlier this month.
Since I was the token moderate on the panel, I went third. I started out my riff (@ 20 minutes into the tape) talking about how a TSA agent at Baltimore went [...]

Thursday 21st July 2011

Lies and Leviathan

The new issue of the American Conservative includes a review essay I wrote on John Mearsheimer’s Why Leaders Lie. Here’s the piece -
Leviathan’s Lies
Review of Why Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in International Politics, John J. Mearsheimer, Oxford University Press, 2011.
By James Bovard
Politicians nowadays treat Americans like medical orderlies treat Alzheimer’s patients, [...]

Wednesday 22nd June 2011

Fear-mongering and Servitude

from the July-August issue of the Freeman -
Fear-Mongering and Servitude
by James Bovard
In his 1776 essay, “Thoughts on Government,” John Adams observed, “Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be [...]

Thursday 9th June 2011

MP3 of Today’s Interview with Ron Smith on WBAL

11:48 am | Afghanistan | Obama | wool | Comments: 0

It’s always fun to raise hell with Ron Smith in Baltimore. Ron had me on his WBAL show today and we had a good time flogging foreign aid and the Afghan debacle. Ron is one of the best informed talk show hosts out there, and it was neat to see what his [...]

Tuesday 31st May 2011

Supreme Court Again Absolves Nation’s Most Dangerous Criminal Class

The Supreme Court ruled today that John Ashcroft cannot be personally sued regardless of the crimes committed against American citizens thanks to his policies as Attorney General.
What a crock.
On the same theme, Tom Engelhardt has an excellent essay today on “Post-Legal America.”

Thursday 12th May 2011

Latest Pro-War Power Grab

I was interviewed this morning (pre-coffee, unfortunately) by Press TV on a provision in a House bill that could make it even easier for presidents to start new war. Here’s their summary of the interview:
++++
The House Armed Services Committee has expanded the Bush-era “war on terror” bill, with amendments that would allow any president [...]

Wednesday 11th May 2011

King of Weasels Enters Prez Race

8:58 pm | Attention Deficit Democracy | Democracy | wool | Comments: 8

No matter what I could write about Newt Gingrich, it would not be snarky enough.
The Washington Post notes today: “Gingrich is an idea-spewing machine, unlike anyone else in the Republican Party. But does America want a one-man think tank , particularly one with his history, as its president?”
The Post was right about the spewing, [...]

Tuesday 10th May 2011

Franklin Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” Fraud

From the February issue of the Future of Freedom Foundation’s Freedom Daily -
Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” Fraud
by James Bovard
President Obama has succeeded in seizing new power over health care and other swaths of American lives in part because previous presidents muddied Americans’ understanding of freedom.
Most of the past century’s debates over the meaning of [...]

Tuesday 3rd May 2011

Feds: Watch Out for Radicalized Individuals!

The Department of Homeland Security has warned landlords in the DC area “to be looking out for the radicalized individual,” according to Peggy Jeffers, of the Apartment and Office Building Association of Metropolitan Washington Inc. DHS sent out the warning to apartment and building managers on Sunday evening, the same time that Obama announced [...]

Thursday 21st April 2011

Ted Rall Nails Obama on Spreading Democacy to Libya

books

information:

archives:

search:

info: