I had a lively chat yesterday with Mises Institute President Jeff Deist regarding Hayek, Mencken, Washington venality, the Great Books, that bastard Nixon, and some of my muckraking over the past decades. I was not aware that folks had considered me a unicorn – I’m more accustomed to being compared to weasels or guttersnipes. Their interview description refers […]
The Washington political establishment took a whupping last night when Virginian voters staunchly defeated Eric Cantor in the Republican congressional primary. Cantor’s defeat is one of the biggest upsets in congressional races in a generation. The obituaries on the Tea Party were premature. Washington pundits will have to stop touting Cantor as the future Speaker of the House […]
The New York Times has a good story today headlined, “War Gear Flows to Police Departments.” Unfortunately, this nonsense has been going on for decades. Playboy published a piece I wrote in 2000 on the militarization of SWAT teams. The article includes a discussion of Waco and the 1999 high school shootings in Littleton, Colorado. […]
This is the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy. It is a great blessing that western Europe is now at peace – regardless of how much political leaders squabble at the commemoration ceremony. D-Day back in the news reminds me of my first visit to World War Two venues. In 1977, after dropping […]
Washington Times, June 5, 2014 Caught between secrecy and censorship Americans need a free press to tell them when the Constitution is trampled by James Bovard Last Monday, the Supreme Court provided invaluable aid to the Obama administration’s campaign to hide evidence of federal abuses from Americans. The court acceded to the administration’s appeal and […]
On this day 150 years ago, General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia had their last great victory over the Army of Potomac. General Grant was convinced that the Southerners were whupped and that he merely had to attack a few more times and Lee’s forces would surrender or dissolve. Lee outfoxed Grant again and his […]
The Supreme Court announced today that it refused to hear a federal court case involving the Obama administration’s targeting of New York Times reporter James Risen. Risen has been in the federal cross-hairs since January 2008 because of details in his 2006 book, A State of War, about a botched CIA effort to subvert Iran’s […]