Scott Horton and I had a rowdy chat on the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta on his radio show. Everyone seems to have forgotten how King John tried to slaughter the barons after he promised to limit his power. Following is the nub of my comments in this interview: From the mid-1200s onwards, English kings were […]
Washington Times, March 12, 2015 Saving Obamacare with supreme hypocrisy By James Bovard – March 12, 2015 Justices fret over coercing states while endlessly menacing individuals At last week’s Supreme Court oral arguments on the Affordable Care Act, several justices questioned whether a verdict against Obamacare would be “unconstitutionally coercive” to state governments that did […]
In his speech this week to his anti-extremism conclave in Washington, President Obama declared that “former extremists have the opportunity to speak out, speak the truth about terrorist groups, and oftentimes they can be powerful messengers in debunking these terrorist ideologies.” But what about former victims of government extremism speaking out? Maher Arar is a […]
COUNTERPUNCH, October 7, 2014 Sheridan’s Scorched Earth Campaign The Civil War and 150 Years of Forgotten US Military Atrocities by JAMES BOVARD George Orwell wrote in 1945 that “the nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.” The […]
Washington Post cartoonist Tom Toles deserves another Pulitzer Prize for this superb cartoon. Some people are singing hallelujahs over the Supreme Court’s recent decision that police cannot automatically search people’s cell phones. However, the Supreme Court has done nothing to negate the government’s prerogative to kill people based on secret memos, secret evidence, and utter bunk. […]
This Tom Toles’ cartoon from the Wash. Post nicely captures the latest election absurdities in Egypt. We don’t have ancient pyramids in this country, but the ruling class is similarly imposing layer after layer of BS on elections. Many Americans already believe that we have an “unknown democracy.” How many absurdities can a democratic system […]
I don’t know about other political skeptics, but I certainly don’t recognize myself in this New Republic portrayal of folks who distrust the government. I’ve never taken an AR-15 to bed even when I was liquored up bad. And choosing Cass Sunstein to review Richard Epstein is a hoot. I first sparred with Sunstein when […]
