Politics

Time to Separate Piety and Politics

by James Bovard May 29, 2024

The First Amendment of the Constitution specifies, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” In Washington, the “free exercise thereof” perennially includes politicians exploiting religion to sanctify themselves and all their power grabs. Piety with a side of eggs One of the most brazen if not most shameless “free exercise thereof” examples ...

The Great Election Fraud

by John W. Whitehead March 15, 2024

“Dictators are not in the business of allowing elections that could remove them from their thrones.”—Gene Sharp, political science professor The U.S. Supreme Court was right to keep President Trump’s name on the ballot. The high court’s decree that the power to remove a federal candidate from the ballot under the Constitution’s “insurrectionist ban” rests ...

America Has a Uniparty System

by Laurence M. Vance January 1, 2024

The United States has been saddled with a two-party political system almost from the very beginning of its existence. First it was the Federalist Party and the Democratic-Republican Party, then it was the Democrats and the Whigs, and now it is the Democrats and the Republicans. George Wallace’s adage that “there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the Democrat ...

Congress’s Unconstitutional Pay Raise Scandal

by James Bovard October 1, 2023

“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, ...

How Evil Are Politicians? Part 2

by George Leef June 1, 2023

Part 1 | Part 2 How Evil Are Politicians?: Essays on Demagoguery by Bryan Caplan (Bet On It Books, 2022) Caplan follows up on that observation with a devastating point about the calculating political mindset. Suppose that a politician had to choose between a populace of nothing but independent, self-supporting individuals or one with a large percentage of envious layabouts ...

How Evil Are Politicians? Part 1

by George Leef May 1, 2023

Part 1 | Part 2 How Evil Are Politicians?: Essays on Demagoguery by Bryan Caplan (Bet On It Books, 2022) If you are a libertarian, or just someone with a streak of skepticism about government, you will enjoy and profit from reading How Evil are Politicians? The author, Bryan Caplan, is a professor of economics at George Mason ...

Biden Weaponizes Hate to Win Votes

by James Bovard February 1, 2023

Historian Henry Adams observed a century ago that politics “has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.” President Biden confirmed this axiom in his raging speeches prior to the mid-term congressional elections. Throughout his career, Biden has relied on a two-step routine —first appealing to “our better angels” before demagogically vilifying his opponents. In December 2020, after the Electoral College ...

When Will Congress Admit Its Mistakes?

by Laurence M. Vance November 1, 2022

“I was wrong,” says a group of New York Times opinion writers. “Eight Times Opinion columnists revisit their incorrect predictions and bad advice — and reflect on why they changed their minds” is the statement that appears at the end of each of the articles. “I was wrong about inflation,” writes Paul Krugman. He “made a very bad call” when ...

Did the FBI Swing the 2020 Election?

by James Bovard July 1, 2022

Joe Biden won the 2020 election as a result of 43,000 votes in three states. The election was far closer than the media has usually admitted. There were plenty of dubious factors that could have tipped the scales for a Biden victory, including machinations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The long history of FBI abuse Though the media usually portray ...

Leftists Lose When People Move

by Scott McPherson April 22, 2022

Over half of the American people believe the country is on the “wrong track,” according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released back in February. And it's not even close. Sixty-three percent expressed this concern. By comparison, just 24 percent are happy with the state of the nation. Republicans and Independents, 86 percent and 67 percent respectively, are most alarmed, but ...

Political Rhetoric Hides the Reality of Peaceful Production vs. Plunder

by Richard M. Ebeling September 13, 2021

The very nature of modern democratic politics is that it is seen as a means and a mechanism to transfer income to some in society at others’ expense. Virtually every politician runs for office on a campaign platform that promises to extend concrete and specific benefits to various selected groups through the taxing or regulating powers of government. This means ...

Congress Is Still Unfit to Govern

by James Bovard March 1, 2021

“In politics, stupidity is not a handicap,” Napoleon is reputed to have said more than two centuries ago. Boundless ignorance is also not a handicap, as Congress demonstrated last December by approving a 5593-page bill without reading it. Plenty of activists and editorial pages howled over the sloppy procedures propelling $2.3 trillion in new federal spending. James Madison warned in ...