Terrorist Suspects Belong in Federal Court by Jacob G. Hornberger December 13, 2007 The new chief judge of the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Marine Col. Ralph H. Kohlman, is being confronted with a paper that was written back in 2002 at the Naval War College criticizing President Bush’s and the Pentagon’s plan to use military tribunals to try suspected terrorists. The paper said that it would be better ...
Don’t Reform the CIA — Abolish It by Jacob G. Hornberger December 12, 2007 The latest CIA scandal will once again teach Americans a valuable lesson: It is the CIA, not the Congress, that is the ultimate governing authority in this nation. No one messes with the CIA, and the CIA knows it. That’s why it knew that it could destroy CIA’s torture tapes without asking anyone’s permission. And, ...
Gun Control Protects Murderers by Jacob G. Hornberger December 11, 2007 Let’s compare the two recent murder rampages in the Omaha, Nebraska, shopping mall and the Colorado Springs church camp. The shopping mall was a “gun-free zone,” a place where people, including murderers, are prohibited from carrying weapons. As we have long pointed out here at The Future of Freedom Foundation, there is one great big fallacy about rules, regulations, or laws ...
Tortures, Tapes, and Lies by Jacob G. Hornberger December 10, 2007 CIA Director Michael Hayden is saying that the reason that the CIA destroyed the videotapes of the CIA’s harsh interrogation of suspected terrorists was because he wanted to protect the identity of CIA agents from possible retaliation from al-Qaeda. That almost certainly has to be a lie. The more likely reason is that Hayden was trying ...
Bush’s and Musharraf’s Contempt for Judges and Lawyers by Jacob G. Hornberger December 9, 2007 The Guantanamo case heard by the Supreme Court on Wednesday raises an important constitutional conflict that the Court will have to resolve. On the one hand, the Constitution guarantees the privilege of habeas corpus for everyone, foreigners and citizens alike. The only way that can be changed is through constitutional amendment. On the other hand, the Constitution vests ...
Mussolini and the Mortgage Bailout by Jacob G. Hornberger December 6, 2007 President Bush’s “agreement” with the mortgage industry to freeze interest rates is a reminder of the point that Ludwig von Mises made about interventionism. It is also a reminder of Benito Mussolini’s government-business partnerships that inspired much of the regulatory aspects of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Notice, first of all, that President Bush and his federal ...
Educational Whackiness by Jacob G. Hornberger December 5, 2007 One of the issues that hasn’t surfaced in a big way in the presidential race is education, which is unfortunate given that it is such an important part of our lives. There are two primary sub-issues involved here: (1) whether to end all federal involvement in education, especially through the abolition of the Department of ...
Bush and His Scary (Nonexistent) WMDs in Iran by Jacob G. Hornberger December 4, 2007 Well, well, well. It seems that President Bush might have to fall back on a democracy-spreading rationale for attacking Iran, just as he did with Iraq when those scary WMDs that Saddam was going to use to conquer America failed to materialize. The CIA and 15 other U.S. spy agencies (yes, 16 in all!) have issued a ...
Fight Despotism with Freedom by Jacob G. Hornberger December 3, 2007 Donald Rumsfeld — you remember him, right? He was U.S. Secretary of Defense (sic) during the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Well, he popped up in the news over the weekend with an op-ed in the Washington Post entitled “The Smart Way to Beat Tyrants Like Chavez.” Let me first give Rumsfeld some credit. In his op-ed, he does ...
Venezuelan Sheep and the Magic Word by Jacob G. Hornberger December 1, 2007 Whatever else might be said about Venezuela’s president Hugh Chavez, no one can deny that he is an astute politician. For example, at election time he hands out federal grants to the voters, knowing that this will purchase their votes, just as President Bush and other American politicians do with American voters here in the ...
Hornberger’s Blog, December 2007 by Jacob G. Hornberger December 1, 2007 Monday, December 31, 2007 Bhutto, JFK, and Conspiracies by Jacob G. Hornberger It’s interesting to compare the attitude of the U.S. mainstream press toward the assassination of Benazir Bhutto with its attitude toward the assassination of President John Kennedy. The immediate reaction of the American press (and U.S. government officials) to the Bhutto killing has been a presumption of a conspiracy. Equally ...
Drug War Idiocy by Jacob G. Hornberger November 30, 2007 Mexican officials are all aglow over the seizure of a record 23 tons of cocaine, which they promptly burned in the hope of receiving $1 billion in U.S. taxpayer monies from U.S. officials. When will the American people finally demand a stop to this drug-war idiocy? Some 30 years ago, when I was a young lawyer in ...
