The American Conservative Seymour Hersh and the Disappearing Iconoclast He won a Pulitzer for My Lai and cracked Abu Ghraib wide open. But this reporter is still a lonely breed. By James Bovard • August 17, 2018 Journalist Seymour Hersh in 2009. Credit: Institute for Policy Studies/Flickr Seymour Hersh, Reporter: A Memoir, Sy Hersh. Knopf, June […]
Tag Archives | Torture

The Hill: Another State of Democracy Report Ignores Cause of Plummeting Trust
The Hill, June 29, 2018 Another ‘state of democracy’ report ignores real cause of plummeting trust by James Bovard The 937th report on the crisis of democracy in the Trump era was released Tuesday. Half of Americans polled believe that the U.S. is in “real danger of becoming a nondemocratic, authoritarian country” and two-thirds believe democracy is […]

James Comey’s Forgotten Rescue of Bush-Era Torture Regime
Mises Institute, May 1, 2018 James Comey’s Forgotten Rescue of Bush-Era Torture by James Bovard In Washington, writing emails is “close enough for government work” to convey sainthood. “Here I stand, I can do no other,” James Comey told President George W. Bush in 2004 when Bush pressured Comey – who was then Deputy Attorney […]
Torture as the Greatest Boondoggle – Mises Speech
When someone asked me to name the biggest U.S. government boondoggle I had seen, I leaped at the chance to flog torture. From my Friday presentation to the Mises Institute conference – Here’s a link to many of the articles I have written on torture since 9/11.

Why Government Never Learns: Mises Institute Speech
Here’s a link to my speech at the Mises Institute Austrian Economics Research Conference this past weekend in Auburn, Alabama. I appreciated the opportunity to pay my respects to Leviathan. I will be posting a few outtakes from this speech in followup blog posts. Mises President Jeff Deist featured much of the speech on his […]

The Hill: George W. Bush’s Forgotten Crimes Against Democracy
The Hill, February 15, 2018 George W. Bush doesn’t deserve the media’s efforts at rehabilitation by James Bovard “Our democracy is only as good as people trust the results,” former President George W. Bush declared in a presumably well-paid speech last week in the United Arab Emirates, a notorious Arab dictatorship. Bush is being exalted […]

New Book: FREEDOM FRAUDS: Hard Lessons in American Liberty
The Future of Freedom Foundation just released a new Amazon Kindle collection of my articles. Freedom Frauds: Hard Lessons in American Liberty is available for only $2.99 – less than the price of a good cigar (so I am told – I wouldn’t know). There’s the story of how I got nailed by the police while searching […]