The Wall Street Journal published a letter today in response to my article, “A Brief History of IRS Political Targeting.” The story generated more than 260 comments online, including plenty of thoughtful observations. Reposted below are a few of the testier comments. Charitable Giving and IRS Abuses: The general outrage over the IRS auditing political […]
The New York Times’ Disunion series has an excellent essay on Nathaniel Hawthorne by Cynthia Wachtell, author of “War No More: The Antiwar Impulse in American Literature, 1861-1914.” In 1863, Hawthorne wrote to an English friend: “The war-party here do not look upon me as a reliably loyal man, and, in fact, I have been […]
Now online – the MP3 of last Thursday’s Scott Horton Show interview on the Wall Street Journal IRS article. Here’s Scott’s summary of the show – “Jim Bovard, author of Public Policy Hooligan, discusses the IRS’s targeting of conservative nonprofit groups; a brief history of presidential administrations that used the IRS to combat political opponents; the […]
Counterpunch, May 20, 2013 Booted for Laughing at Drug War My Supreme Court Fashion Felony by JAMES BOVARD In March 1995, I visited the sacred burial ground of Americans’ rights and liberties – the Supreme Court. Working on an article for Playboy, I went to watch lawyers argue a case of great principle and tawdry details. […]
This is a photo of Ludwig von Mises’ historian Richard Ebeling “near the TV Tower in Vilnius, Lithuania, January 13-14, 1991, (Soviet tank and crew member in background) after the Soviet military seized government buildings and communication centers in an attempt to crush the Lithuanian freedom movement. Thirteen people killed that night resisting Soviet power,” […]
The @HLMenckenbot had a great Mencken quote on Twitter this morning: “The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.” It never occurred me that laughing in court could be a crime punishable by jail time. But maybe […]