Jim Bovard | The Libertarian Institute

It’s Time for Joe Biden to Exit the Ring

by Jim Bovard | Jun 9, 2022 | Featured Articles, Politics

President Biden often looks like a punch-drunk old fighter sent into the ring once too often. At this point, the only thing lower than Biden’s approval numbers is his energy level. Is Uncle Joe too old to rebound? At this point, Biden is running on little more than fumes and righteousness. In his televised antigun speech Thursday night, Biden proclaimed that he expected most people “to turn your outrage into making this issue [assault weapons] central to your vote.” Biden’s histrionic spiel was far more likely to turbo-charge gun owners than gun banners and could be another coffin nail for...

‘Assault Weapons’ Ban: First Step on the Road to Tyranny

by Jim Bovard | Jun 6, 2022 | Featured Articles

President Joe Biden is seeking to revive his presidency by demolishing the Second Amendment. In a televised address last Thursday, Biden called for a ban on assault weapons, which he portrayed as the epitome of evil. Vice President Kamala Harris caterwauled that assault weapons are a “weapon of war” with “no place in civil society.” Assault weapons are a “flag of convenience” for the Democrats’ circus shell game with Americans’ constitutional rights. Biden talks as if assault weapons are solely a moral issue. But once that premise is accepted, then he can move to ban vast numbers of firearms...

Against Public Interest, Supreme Court Protects Torture Cover-Up

by Jim Bovard | Mar 15, 2022 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

The Supreme Court declared last week that Americans have no right to learn the grisly details of CIA torture because the CIA has never formally confessed its crimes. The verdict symbolizes how the rule of law has become little more than a form of legal mumbo-jumbo to shroud official crimes. Why should anyone expect justice from a Supreme Court that covers up torture? In 2002, the CIA captured Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian radical, in Pakistan, mistakenly believing he was a kingpin with al-Qaeda. The CIA tortured him for years in Thailand and Poland. As dissenting Justice Neil Gorsuch noted,...

DC ‘Experts’ Could Kill Us All

by Jim Bovard | Mar 10, 2022 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

The Biden administration appears to be blundering ever close to a war with Russia. People can condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the killing of civilians without fantasizing that the U.S. military has a magic wand to stop that war. Unfortunately, the American media and a herd of pundits is pushing for military intervention such as No-Fly Zones—as if shooting down Russian planes would not quickly spur World War III. American newspapers and television networks are broadcasting brazen propaganda that they sometimes recognize is deceptive. When did swallowing and re-tweeting bogus...

What Does a Capitol Fence Say to the World?

by Jim Bovard | Mar 7, 2022 | Featured Articles, Politics

Spooked by the threat of anti-Biden trucker convoys heading to Washington, high fences will reportedly return around the US Capitol in the coming days. When President Biden gives his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, he will have no fears of hearing any caterwauling from average Americans who are being impoverished and injected thanks to his policies. Hundreds of National Guard troops will also be deployed on the streets of Washington, perhaps finally vanquishing the local epidemic of double-parking and jaywalking. Any fence that is erected around the Capitol will be designed to protect...

Free Crack Pipes? Time to Pardon Tommy Chong

by Jim Bovard | Feb 14, 2022 | Criminal Justice, Featured Articles

Conservative publications have accused the Biden administration of planning to distribute $30 million worth of free crack pipes and other paraphernalia as part of its effort to achieve “racial equity” among “underserved communities.” The original notice for federal grants included provisions to pay for “safe smoking kits/supplies” but the Biden administration insists that no federal funds will be specifically used to purchase crack pipes. But taxpayers will get screwed anyway thanks to federal distribution of free condoms under the same program. While “harm reduction” is the stated goal of ...

Don’t Fall for the ‘National Service’ Scam

by Jim Bovard | Feb 7, 2022 | Featured Articles

In the wake of America’s disastrous Civil War, the Thirteenth Amendment was enacted to prohibit involuntary servitude. Unfortunately, top newspapers, pundits, and think tanks are now campaigning to nullify that prohibition. Apparently, slavery was evil not because of the unjust subjugation but because plantation owners, not politicians, were the profiteers. Politicians have long been hustling to establish their prerogative to commandeer young Americans’ lives. At a “Volunteerism Summit” in Philadelphia in 1997, President Bill Clinton announced that America needed more “citizen-servants” and...

Demonizing Those Who Drive for Freedom

by Jim Bovard | Feb 4, 2022 | Featured Articles

The denigration of the Canadian trucker protest convoy exemplifies how freedom is now the biggest villain of the COVID-19 pandemic. A Washington Post cartoonist portrayed the trucker convoy as “fascism” incarnate while another Post column derided the “toxic ‘Freedom Convoy.’” Anyone who resists any government command is apparently now a public enemy. The trucker protest was spurred by the Canadian government’s sweeping COVID vaccine mandate. Many truckers believe the risks of the vaccine outweigh the benefit and, more importantly, that they have the right to control their own bodies....