Why the California Raisins Have Stopped Singing Using 1930s-era regulations, the USDA can commandeer up to half a farmer’s harvest. by James Bovard Wall Street Journal May 27, 2014 Earlier this month the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the U.S. Department of Agriculture taking 47% of a farmer’s harvest does not […]
Tag Archives | Agriculture
Supreme Court Rebuffs Ruinous Raisin Regime
From the Future of Freedom Foundation – A Supreme Rebuff for Ruinous Raisin Regime by James Bovard The Supreme Court in June finally opened the door for farmers to escape from one of the most dictatorial bureaucratic regimes in the federal government. But it remains to be seen whether farmers will secure freedom and justice […]
Wash. Times: Obama’s Obesity Epidemic
Washington Times, December 3, 2013 BOVARD: Obama’s obesity epidemic by James Bovard Federal food programs are now feeding more than 100 million Americans. The number of recipients has soared in recent years, thanks in part to Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign pledge to abolish childhood hunger by 2015. The food-aid explosion is worsening the nation’s obesity […]
Wash. Times: Will Supreme Court End USDA Dictatorship?
Washington Times, May 13, 2003 BOVARD: Dancing to the beat of the grapevine The raisin famers seek servitude liberation Does the secretary of agriculture need unlimited power over farmers to protect them against themselves? The Supreme Court might finally settle this issue in an imminent decision on one of USDA’s most bizarre regimes. When […]
Wall Street Journal Publishes Food for Peace Retort
Responding to my piece last week – in tomorrow’s Letters to the Editor in the Wall Street Journal – Food for Peace is an international aid program that has been successful domestically and abroad since its inception in 1954 (“How ‘Food for Peace’ Hurts Foreign Farmers” by James Bovard, op-ed, April 30). It has fed the […]
Hayek Birthday and 1985 Firing Line Transcript
Friedrich Hayek was born this day in 1899. Hayek had a huge influence on the development of my political thinking. I learned about Hayek’s existence when William F. Buckley spoke at Virginia Tech and touted the Austrian economist’s opposition to the Welfare State. I zipped to the bookstore the next morning and snared Hayek’s 1944 […]
MP3 of Scott Horton Show Interview on Food for Peace
Scott Horton and I had fun yesterday discussing the twisted history of U.S. foreign aid on his radio show. The show was spurred by yesterday’s Wall Street Journal article on Food for Peace, but farm subsidies took a thrashing across the board. There was also enough time to kick the stuffing out of ethanol. Okay, […]