Jim Bovard | The Libertarian Institute

Tyranny Comes to Main Street

by Jim Bovard | Dec 12, 2023 | Featured Articles

The following is chapter one of James Bovard's new book, Last Rights: The Death of American Liberty, published by the Libertarian Institute. Order your copy today. Americans today have the “freedom” to be fleeced, groped, wiretapped, injected, censored, injected, ticketed, disarmed, beaten, vilified, detained, and maybe shot by government agents. Politicians are hell-bent on protecting citizens against everything except Uncle Sam. Is America becoming a Cage Keeper Democracy where voters merely ratify the latest demolition of their rights and liberties? “We live in a world in which everything...

Kissinger and My Interstate 81 Epiphany

by Jim Bovard | Dec 5, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Henry Kissinger died last Wednesday. So far, I’ve been handling the grief pretty well. Kissinger was the most esteemed war criminal in American history. As Richard Nixon’s National Security Advisor, Kissinger summarized the president's order for bombing Cambodia: “Anything that flies on everything that moves.” In a 1972 conversation captured by the secret White House taping system, Nixon told Kissinger, “The only place where you and I disagree...Is with regard to the bombing. You’re so goddamned concerned about the civilians and I don’t give a damn. I don’t care.” Kissinger replied, “I’m...

Julian Assange Still Deserves a Medal of Freedom

by Jim Bovard | Nov 27, 2023 | Featured Articles

Five years ago, USA Today published my piece, "Julian Assange deserves a Medal of Freedom, not a secret indictment." Assange has been persecuted because he and Wikileaks exposed war crimes by the U.S. government and its allies. But he still deserves a Medal of Freedom for his heroic efforts to save democracy from Leviathan. The Joe Biden administration's pursuit of Assange has been as shameless as the Donald Trump administration's indictment. Assange is locked away in one of Britain's most repressive prisons while the Biden administration is seeking to extradite Assange to the United States...

Visiting the Ghosts of Waco

by Jim Bovard | Nov 13, 2023 | Featured Articles

After decades of writing about the greatest atrocity of 1993, I finally visited Waco last week. I was traveling with a friend who was hepped up on seeing Waco’s most popular tourist site—Magnolia, a massive shopping complex spawned by an HGTV program on home remodeling. That venue was easy to spot thanks to its trademark giant silo in the downtown area. Having grown up in a farming area, I struggled mightily to comprehend how a silo could become a chic fashion symbol. The main building was overstocked with frenzied, middle aged women who would not be described as “bookish.” There was a...

Scandal: Congress Votes to Raise Its Own Pay

by Jim Bovard | Nov 8, 2023 | Featured Articles

“A good politician is almost as rare as an honest burglar,” once quipped H. L. Mencken. After the shenanigans around the latest congressional pay increase, America’s burglars should file a posthumous libel suit against Mencken for that disparaging comparison. There is a pity party in Washington: You weren’t invited, but you’ll pay the bill. The Constitution’s 27th Amendment, ratified in 1992, prohibits any law “varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives” from taking effect “until an election of representatives shall have intervened.” But the Constitution...

FBI = Following Biden’s Instructions?

by Jim Bovard | Oct 30, 2023 | Criminal Justice, Featured Articles

Does “FBI” now stand for “Following Biden’s Instructions”? The FBI is doing backflips to boost Joe Biden’s re-election campaign. Unfortunately, federal courts don’t recognize law enforcement shenanigans as a violation of the Voting Rights Act. The FBI is categorizing Donald Trump’s supporters as terrorist suspects, according to a new report in Newsweek. The FBI created “a new category of extremists that it seeks to track and counter: Donald Trump’s army of MAGA followers,” Newsweek revealed. The FBI is relying on the same counterterrorism methods honed to fight al Qaeda to go after the...

Fallujah Is Not a Presidential Victory Lap

by Jim Bovard | Aug 30, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Politics

In the first 2024 Republican presidential debate last week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis touted his time in Iraq. “I learned in the military, I was assigned with U.S. Navy SEALs in Iraq, that you focus on the mission above all else, you can’t get distracted,” he declared. Later in the debate he stated, “I’m somebody that volunteered to serve, inspired by September 11 and I deployed to Iraq alongside U.S. Navy SEALs in places like Fallujah, Ramadi…” Some viewers had the impression that DeSantis was a Seal, but he was actually a Harvard Law School graduate who was a Judge Advocate General...

Trusting the 9/11 Commission Is An Automatic Disqualification

by Jim Bovard | Aug 14, 2023 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Politics

The nation’s media and political establishment were horrified the other week when a presidential candidate cast aspersions on the 9/11 Commission report. Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, in an interview on Blaze TV, responded to a question on the 9/11 attacks, “I don’t believe the government has told us the truth…Do I believe the 9/11 Commission? Absolutely not.” Former Vice President Mike Pence, who is laboring on the campaign trail while awaiting a miracle to save his candidacy, announced that he was “deeply offended” by Ramaswamy’s doubts. But was Pence ever “deeply offended” by government...

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