June 25, 2014 The Medals of Freedom vs. America’s Freedom by JAMES BOVARD For almost 50 years, politicians have used Medals of Freedom to reward their henchmen who started wars or subverted freedom. Prior to the 1960s, the U.S. government avoided the temptation to distribute nonmilitary awards by the bucket. However, in 1963, President […]
From the Future of Freedom Foundation’s monthly journal – Freedom vs. Medals of Freedom by James Bovard Though proximity to power is its own reward, rulers have long recognized the benefit of distributing trinkets to potential sycophants. From medieval times onwards, the English king was seen as the “fount of all honors.” The British government […]
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 […]
COUNTERPUNCH, January 7, 2014 How the Tax Code is Used to Suppress Political Opponents Is There No Cure for the IRS’s Perpetual Political Outrages? by JAMES BOVARD The power to tax has long conferred the power to destroy one’s political opponents. When the latest IRS politicalization scandal erupted last May, many commentators talked as if […]
This is the anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974. Nixon knew that his defense was doomed and chose to throw in the towel without a Senate trial. But President Gerald Ford compounded the damage from Nixon’s presidency when he issued a sweeping pardon of Nixon that practically condemned future generations of Americans to […]
The podcast is up from this morning’s interview on the IRS’s long & sordid history with WHO’s Jan Mickelson, Iowa’s top radio host. The 12-minute interview starts with some audiotapes that Jan found that show great parallels between Nixon’s evasions during Watergate and the Obama administration’s shuffling on the IRS scandal. I pointed out that […]
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