Immigration Land Grab Along the Border by Jacob G. Hornberger February 19, 2008 Last Saturday’s Washington Post had an interesting story about the federal government’s land grab along the Rio Grande to build its anti-immigrant Berlin Fence. Not surprisingly, Texas landowners, many of whom have owned their property for generations, are fighting this federal tyranny as hard as they can. Isn’t it interesting — and revealing — that conservatives ...
Socialism for Big Business by Jacob G. Hornberger February 18, 2008 If you want a great insight into how the lobbying game works in Washington, D.C., take a look at a very insightful article entitled “Mickey Goes to Washington” by Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, which appeared in last Sunday’s Washington Post Magazine. The article focuses on the process by which Walt Disney Parks and Resort and other big-business ...
Economic Nonsense about Immigrants by Jacob G. Hornberger February 15, 2008 I don’t know anything about Virginia Republican Delegate Jeffrey Frederick’s educational background but based on his understanding of economics, my hunch is that he is a product of public schools and state-supported universities, many of which, as a general rule, teach absolute nonsense in their economics classes. Exclaiming against illegal immigrants in Prince William County, Virginia, where government officials have ...
Torture and Kangaroo Justice Are Un-American by Jacob G. Hornberger February 14, 2008 Justice Scalia’s remarks about torture reflect a fundamental problem with conservative judges. While oftentimes sound on economic liberty, they are absolutely atrocious with respect to civil liberties. Scalia’s approval of torture in certain circumstances ignores an important point that every first-year law student learns in his constitutional law course: that people are presumed innocent until ...
Attention, Neo-Con Automatons! by Jacob G. Hornberger February 13, 2008 Fury has erupted in Britain over letting a 12-year-old Afghan boy attend school. The boy had trained as a suicide bomber in Afghanistan because after his father, who had a member of the Taliban, was shot and killed by British soldiers, an Afghan elder told the boy, “You must avenge his death by becoming a ...
Imperialism, Interventionism, and Isolationism by Jacob G. Hornberger February 12, 2008 Conservatives and neo-conservatives sometimes claim that libertarians are “isolationists” because we oppose empire and interventionism. Their suggestion is that if the U.S. government did not have the unrestrained power to drop bombs on countries around the world, that would mean that America would be an “isolationist” country, sort of, I suppose, like Switzerland, whose ...
A Confluence of Cultures along the Border by Jacob G. Hornberger February 8, 2008 For those of you looking for something patriotic to do to celebrate George Washington’s birthday, you might want to consider traveling down to my hometown of Laredo, Texas, on the weekend of February 22. Laredo, a city along the Texas-Mexican border has the biggest George Washington birthday celebration in the nation. What’s special about the celebration ...
U.S. Soldiers Will Pay the Price for Bush’s Torture Policy by Jacob G. Hornberger February 7, 2008 After years of hearing President Bush proudly proclaim to the American people and the world that “We don’t torture,” yesterday the American people and the world learned that it was just one more lie on top of all the others. The White House and the CIA have come out and publicly admitted that they have ...
Why Doesn’t Obama Turn Himself In? by Jacob G. Hornberger February 6, 2008 In a Washington Times article on the drug war today, Steve Chapman points out that Barack Obama was for decriminalization of marijuana before he was against it. According to Chapman, who cites a Washington Times story on the matter, in his 2004 U.S. Senate race Obama came out for decriminalization. Now that he’s running for ...
Businessmen as Enemies of the Market by Jacob G. Hornberger February 5, 2008 One of the most common myths is that businessmen favor free enterprise — that is, enterprise that is free from government interference. Historically businessmen have been among the biggest proponents of government interference in market transactions, especially in order to use government power to gain a privileged position against their competitors. The latest example of ...
Squeezed by the Welfare-Warfare Vise by Jacob G. Hornberger February 4, 2008 In my article “Brace Yourselves,” I pointed out that owing to the refusal of the American people and U.S. officials to slash either welfare-state spending or warfare-state spending, federal spending will continue to soar out of control. That will add to the ever-increasing amount of U.S. government debt. The Federal Reserve in turn will continue printing the money ...
Hornberger’s Blog, February 2008 by Jacob G. Hornberger February 1, 2008 Friday, February 29, 2008 Did the CIA Effect Regime Change in November 1963? by Jacob G. Hornberger In my blog yesterday, I noted that contrary to a popular refrain in the controversy over the John Kennedy assassination, government officials can, indeed, keep secrets. I pointed out that if three district attorneys in Dallas could keep the existence of a vault containing ...
