INTERVIEW Jim Bovard –
Summary
➡ The text discusses the extensive influence and control of the FBI over American democracy, highlighting issues such as possible intervention in elections, secret infiltration of church services, and unchecked power. The author recounts controversies involving the FBI, like the Ruby Ridge incident, and criticizes the absence of effective efforts to rein in the agency’s power.
➡ James Bovard discusses FBI misconduct at Ruby Ridge and Bundy Ranch, praises judges who stand against the FBI’s unfair practices, condemns civil asset forfeiture, criticizes the false portrayal of the Bundys as aggressive by mainstream media, and points out the unconstitutional aspects of the war on drugs, noting it incentivizes local law enforcement to seize people’s property for alleged involvement in drug activities.
➡ Lieutenant Colonel Brian Christmas discusses the contradiction of the US military presence in Afghanistan and the opium trade, highlighting the increasing narco-economy under US occupation. The narrative also addresses US government policy contradictions, particularly in the context of ongoing wars and constitutional obligations. Furthermore, it delves into the socio-political impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the use of pandemic regulations to infringe civil liberties. Lastly, it criticizes the media’s portrayal of Dr. Fauci and questions his contradictory statements during the pandemic.
➡ The speaker criticizes Biden’s mandatory vaccination policy for large companies and the belief that only vaccinated individuals are safe from Covid, highlighting allegations of breakthrough cases being concealed by the government. The speaker disagrees with central authorities being trusted completely and alludes to corporations benefiting from government contracts and mandates, forming an alleged conflict of interest, while criticizing the government’s forced censorship of content mocking the vaccines on social platforms like Facebook and Twitter. They further report on insider information revealing questionable practices within the government’s handling of the Covid situation. The speaker concludes by advocating for a reevaluation of citizens’ perception of the government and politicians, asserting the detrimental impact of authoritarian government moves on individual freedom, prosperity, and health.
➡ James Bovard discusses his work and perspective on public health authority, along with his recent experiences, including his photography around the Capitol. Bovard’s work spans various media outlets like the New York Post and the American Conservative Magazine. Bovard and host make future plans to continue their conversation about the book and personal experiences.
Transcript
And thanks again for on the backside of Twitter at Gard Goldsmith for the kind words from yesterday’s show. I really appreciated that. And I want to say a big couple words of appreciation to Karen Carpenter in the Rockfin chat. She mentions that satisfaction of teaching one day I gave a lecture about heart attacks to second graders because they were curious about it. I drew pictures of the circulatory system.
It was spur of the moment, but what a hoot. The students were enthralled. And some also some great comments from Wes Robertson talking about what Greg Abbot can do. Abbot can end the illegals coming through his state anytime constitutionally just by nullifying federal dictates. Well, again, I hope that the outlines they gave about the Kentucky resolutions and James Madison also in letters mentioned that it’s supposed to be a state purview.
That 1875 childlong decision is as bad as the Dred Scott decision, as bad as the Roe v. Wade decision. It warps the perception of the Constitution and so many people start to think that that’s the way it should be. And then of course, everybody starts to argue over the one size must fits all. So very interesting stuff. I really want to thank everyone in the rumble chat as well.
That one person says, too bad, bitchute doesn’t have the money behind them. That rumble has. Bitchute has always been solid. I like bitchute as well. And high boost mentions Trump. And he says Trump used Facebook in 2016 to win, but it was used against him in 2020. Kind of funny. Well, yeah, I think it’s going to be very interesting to see what happens in this next election, but I have no vested interest in this whatsoever.
I do want to welcome, however, a man who has been watching this longer than I have and has been one of my big heroes for a long time. He’s our guest now on the David Knight show. He is James Bovard coming to us from just outside the swamp of Washington, DC on the David Knight show. James, welcome to the program. I see the symbol for you. I think we’ve got audio.
And welcome and congratulations on your new book. Last rights. James Bovard, thanks very much. Thanks for having me on. Having me back on. And thanks for plugging the book. And yeah, I was trying to figure out whether or not to use a video today and I thought it might overwhelm viewers to have two photogenic guys on the screen. Well, thank you. Thank you, James. I don’t have the beard.
I couldn’t grow the beard the way you do. But yes, I know we would probably. Blessings. Count your blessings on the beard. Isn’t that what the Ministry of Truth is all about? Nina Jankovic was there to stop us handsome guys from getting too much airtime. Right. I don’t know entirely what she was supposed to do, but she was great for comic relief. It’s always good to have a woman whose videos included.
Who exactly can I fill in the blank to become rich and powerful? I wouldn’t use that verb because you’ve got a family friendly show. But it was great to see, like, you know, I guess, you know, the Biden White House, when they were vetting her for that appointment, forgot to ask one important question. Does she sing? Maybe they’ll have to put that on the application form from now on.
Right. Well, the nice thing is, once they booted her, everybody thought the Ministry of Truth was done, but it wasn’t. They brought in Michael Cherdoff. Yeah, it’s just amazing that he would have any credibility in Washington after the things he’s done and the lobbying. He’s these. I’m sorry, go ahead. No, no. I heard, Jim, that he wants people to pass through an airport scanner before they can get online to speak.
I think that’s his new gimmick just to sell more. Well, you know, you got to find some use for those damn airport scanners. Hell, haven’t done any good as far as catching weapons and bombs. So I’ve had some memorable experiences with those scanners and with the TSA, and I tried to settle accounts. Hey, I tell you, James Bovard is our guest, folks. Go to jimbovard. com and follow him at Jim Bovard on Twitter.
And the new book is great. And I know that you wrote about your recent experiences with the TSA. It hasn’t changed. It’s not any more secure. We know that every few years they would have their studies on how many bomb like materials would go through and even ABC News would do their own studies. It never changed. Despite the increasing budget, despite the daily minute by minute, person by person encroachments into the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, the 6th Amendment, the 8th Amendment, so many things.
And that lets us look at last rights. And I want to bring this up to all the audience, everybody, last rights. The latest from James Bovard. It has a picture of the Capitol building with the razor wire and the fence just in the foreground. And of course, on the back. I showed this at the start of the show, everybody, the armed goons protecting our liberties. Isn’t that. Oh, I’m sorry, they’re protecting the politicians from we people they tell us are free.
James, you’ve got a lot in this book. First of all, I know you’ve been working on this for a long time. How long ago did you start to think, okay, I’m going to get this book out because this is a crucial time to have this book released? Shortly before COVID actually, I was trying to tie a lot of things together that I’ve been writing about for years. I mean, this is a flashback to 1993 94 when lost rights came out, the book that preceded this.
Right. And it was a roundup of a lot of the federal, state and local atrocities and abuses back then. And folks said I was much too cynical. And it’s kind of like, I don’t think so. But it’s sad to look back in the 1990s almost as like if it was a golden era for freedom. It’s bizarre, isn’t it? It’s like going from one abusive relationship into a worse relationship.
And then you say to yourself, gee, I had it better off when I was getting beat up this way. It’s ridiculous. It’s like drowning in water versus drowning in quicksand. It gets worse. It just gets know. They keep using these rationales where the government gets caught at know. We see James Clapper testifying in front of Ron Wyden. And Wyden already knows that they’re surveilling people because they’ve got the Snowden information.
It just hasn’t gone public yet. And all of a sudden, boom. What happens? He asks him, is the NSA collecting data on people? No. And then widen gives him a chance to get out of possibly perjuring himself, which he just did. And he says no. And he’s like, well, not knowingly. Like, no, you were doing it knowingly. That’s what the whole FISA thing is about. And it’s not just section 702.
It’s the very concept of it’s not in the constitution. It’s strictly prohibited. And the prohibition doesn’t mean that it only applies to the government invading Americans rights. It’s anybody’s rights. They don’t have the ability to scan somebody in Sweden, just like they don’t have the ability to scan somebody in New Hampshire. They just don’t have the power. It’s amazing to me, James, you have so many things here.
Can I run through a little bit? Thank you so much. Pardon the spectacles here. I just wanted to make sure I looked like Charlie Robinson, the great Charlie Robinson, a great podcaster. So in the book, everybody just released from the Libertarian Institute, and I hope you will check it out at the Libertarian Institute website. As you mentioned here you have in the introduction, tyranny comes to Main Street.
Americans today have the freedom to be freedom in quotes. And this is very important to me, James, and I’m so glad that having as a teenager I picked up one of your books, I’m like ten years behind you or something like that. And I’m like, I like this guy and now I know you and I’m like, I like this guy. And you keep getting the bat on the leather.
You keep hitting it, man. It’s great. The bat on the leather. Okay. That’s a New Hampshire phrase? Yeah, absolutely. It’s my dad. He used to play for the Red Sox, their farm team. Really? That’s great. Yeah, they were called the hooligan squad. It was before World War II. Yeah, it was interesting. Americans today, you say, have the quote, freedom, end quote, to be fleeced, groped, wiretapped, injected, censored, ticketed, disarmed, beaten, vilified, detained and maybe shot by government agents.
Politicians are hell bent on protecting citizens against everything except Uncle Sam. It’s that wonderful social contract. Isn’t America, is America becoming a cage keeper democracy where voters merely ratify the latest demolition of their rights and liberties? And you cover in this book, it’s not just a wide array, it’s as if you’re using a logical syllogism from point a down to 00:15. What letter is that? M. Something like that.
You talk about seizure fever, the war on gun owners, license to kill, the COVID crackdown catastrophe, schools gone wild, 10,000 tsars, subsidies and subjugation dominate. Yeah, be careful what you wish for. States and corporations dominate, intimidate, control. Taxation and tyranny. No place to hide, see no evil. Democracy, mindless ministry of. Ah, the singing spirit of nanny Jankowitz. American Gestapo run amok. And last chance for liberty, concluding things with tons of end notes.
So, James, you put this together. It’s a lot of work. In addition to the articles you write, I don’t know how many articles you write every week. Do you have a certain set number that you put out? Every. No. You know, with the book being done, I’m aspiring to have three or four out per week. But I have a question for you. On the book, is that a paperback or a hardback version? This is the hardcover.
Okay. Because I haven’t seen it. I was trying to find it. I mean, Amazon was supposed to have it and I don’t. So where did you order that from? I can’t remember if I got this through the libertarian Institute website or I went to Amazon just so I could get it shipped over more. You know, it looks just, I was trying to get some hardbacks and I’ve got paperbacks, but I will track those.
Oh, this is absolutely fantastic. James, I got a few of the items I’d like to discuss with you and I’ve bookmarked each one far away. Okay. We’ve got chapter three, the war on gun owners. Of course. I was talking about the way that so called red flag laws are contrary to half the Bill of Rights, punishment without any trial, Second Amendment, Third Amendment, Fourth Amendment, Fifth Amendment, 6th Amendment.
Then we’ve got license to kill. And this is really something else. It goes back to the lot of different things with the Justice Department and how so called reform was never actually instituted. And as they often do, the reforms that they claim actually give them permission to do even worse things to us. Then we’re talking about the american Gestapo run amok. That is the FBI. So if you’d like to pick any one of those for our audience, and if anyone has any questions for James Bovard, put it in the Rockfin or rumble chat.
And if you’re watching on David Knight’s Twitter feed, I can also check those in a little while. But we’ll go with Rockfin and Rumble chat. James, is there any one of those you’d like to hit first? I don’t have any specific preference on the FBI. The American Gestapo. That was a phrase from President Truman right in his diary. I think in late 1945, maybe 46, he said he was worried that the FBI was becoming a Gestapo and that America did not need that.
That was just after the defeat of Nazi Germany. Yeah, I see here we want no Gestapo or secret police. FBI is trending in that direction. 1945, you wrote. Yes. So he was aware of the damage, the danger, and other politicians have had some very eloquent statements on that over the subsequent decades. But the FBI still has vast unchecked power. The FBI tried to throw the 2016 presidential election to Hillary Clinton.
The FBI had a huge role in helping Joe Biden win the 2020 election. And I don’t know, there hasn’t been any effective effort that I know of to put a leash on the FBI for the 2024 presidential election. So I don’t see how democracy survives this. Well, it’s amazing because you can roll back so fluidly in conversation to some of those things. And every one of those things you mentioned the 2016.
Right. So one of the things on which I was reporting, an MRCTV, James, was the so called DNC hack. Right? Okay. We know that the DNC didn’t give the computer to the FBI initially. They gave it to Crowdstrike. Crowdstrike run by this guy, Aparamov or something like that, a member of the Atlantic Council. They came out with their report, which is absolutely ridiculous. Bill Benny has mentioned that there’s no way that the data could have been transferred as quickly as it was transferred.
If it was done through phone lines, it had to have been done on site with data sticks, flash drives, and then this guy aprovamich or whatever, comes out and says, oh, it was the Russians. And that entire Russians interference, russian thing carried through as the Portman Murphy bill was circulating in 2016 and got passed in that last NDAA that Obama signed in December of 2016, which created the Portman Murphy Countering Foreign Propaganda act, which helped give a lot of this money to places like Newsguard and election guard and all these different agencies that we found were actually being funded by the feds.
Simultaneous to that, we see the feds now hiding information about, like, the hunter Biden laptop and literally reaching out to the New York Times to say, don’t talk about this thing that we know. The hard drive had the chain of possession already set up. They knew it was authentic, but they didn’t want people to know about this. And that’s one of the softer things. But it had incredible implications, and I was amazed that many people were unaware of the FBI’s role in that.
Yeah, I mean, that’s something that New York post did great work on, and they have dogged that issue very effectively. It’s frustrating to see how much bs the government still gets away with. And talking to folks who are moderates, liberals, Democrats, or even undecided, their knowledge base on these scandals is very low. And it’s sort of like talking to conservatives about the torture scandals. Like what? That never happened.
Right. This is part of how the outrages snowball and they turn into precedents. And there’s almost no way to put a leash on them. It’s amazing. We know that prior to, say, this contemporary era we might be looking at, at 2016, there were all sorts of problems with the FBI as we know, whether it was the Black Panthers, Martin Luther King Jr. And so many of the different things that were instituted with the creation of the FBI right on through.
It’s always been very sketchy. It’s always been something where the FBI, on the surface, carried this sort of mantle of pride. And a lot of the guys would go into the FBI thinking, I’m going to do the right thing. But there have always been very dark factions to the FBI, and a lot of questions constitutionally about, well, is it really excusable to create a police agency for crimes that might happen across borders, or is it really just the maximum that the feds would do would be to facilitate extradition between states? And that’s sort of the fundamental question about the FBI.
But there are other things that have happened recently. We’ve seen the FBI and, of course, the Department of Education being implicated at the Justice Department as well in possibly investigating concerned parents who go to school board meetings and investigating Catholics who are traditional and catholic masses. Would you like to amplify on some of the other things that you discovered, as you wanted to put this together or throughout your life, some of the things that stand out for you about the FBI and just how inflammatory it has become or how bad it was in the past? Yeah, that’s a very good question.
It’s interesting going back to the FBI and the Catholics. It came out earlier this year that the FBI in Richmond and other places had a secret campaign to infiltrate church services to, quote, identify the bad. I don’t. I’m not comfortable at all with the FBI setting themselves up to be secret judges of who is and who is not a good christian or a good. This is. You talk about a pandora’s box, and this is something.
It wasn’t just one knitwit FBI agent who did this. This is something which got approved at multiple levels. But one of the things that sticks in my mind most vividly on the FBI was Ruby Ridge. You had the FBI send their snipers out there. You had the know the FBI snipers were given an order to shoot to kill, basically shoot on site for the adults that were being besieged by federal agents.
And then the FBI sniper guns down. Vicki Weaver, she’s holding her baby in the cabin door. Lon Horiuchi never received any sort of punishment. In fact, he got advanced as Horiuchi after killing, right? Yep. And so that was something I wrote about, and it was fascinating to see the pushback. FBI Director Lewis free condemned me in public for slandering FBI agents and the FBI itself. But I later got hold of a 500 page confidential justice department report on their analysis of Ruby Ridge.
And their justice department had many of the same condemnations of the FBI that I had as far as their conduct and their cover up of Ruby Ridge. But you just said it publicly. I said it publicly, and the FBI chief thought that he could squash my reputation like a bug. Well, I’m still here. You are, James Bovard. And by the way, as we talk about last rights, I want to mention, I remember at that time, Ruby Ridge, G.
Gordon Liddy was doing his radio show. Oh, he was great. Yeah. And he was excellent on that Ruby Ridge issue. And he would mention what you were talking about. I remember him talking about your work on his show. And I got to meet him a number of years ago, and he was very nice to me. And obviously going to prison after the Nixon issues and things like that.
But he really did a splendid job talking about Lonhaarucci, Ruby Ridge, and Randy Waver and his family. And I really appreciate the fact that you stood up for those know, David Knight was down there, down at Bundy Ranch when the Bureau of Land Management was trying to wipe out the Bundy ranch and take that over. They were sabotaging the water pipes and so on. David was there at the standoff as the snipers had their guns trained on them.
He was right there. Yeah. There’s a section in the book on the Bundy ranch case and the incredible. And it gets me choked up a little bit sometimes to think about just how far people know. You get these little bubble ups of people standing up for what is appropriate. They’re standing up for their rights. These people at Bundy Ranch had a land agreement when Nevada was a territory.
And as I’ve mentioned, there is no provision for the United States government to run land other than Washington, DC, territories and military garrisons. And as you know, when, according to the constitution, territories become states, they’re supposed to enter with, as they say, all the rights and privileges of any other state. And there is no mandate that they have to seed land to the government. And even if they had to seed land, even if they wanted to seed land to the federal government, the federal government has no provision in the constitution to manage that land.
So all these areas, Grand Escalante, as I mentioned yesterday on David’s show, or the bears feet or the anwar, anything like that, all these areas where they’ve opened up national parks, know, closed off anthracite to help the Lippo group for the Clinton administration. Any of those things, those are supposed to be up to the states. And since the Bundys had an agreement from that territory of Nevada before it became a state, they were grandfathered in, their family had grazing rights and the feds were trying to wipe them out.
And it’s amazing to think that the pop media could portray people who were just trying to mind their own business, who are just sitting there, who got invaded by federal agents, the FBI, the BLM, with their tax funded guns. They can portray the Bundys as the flipped out aggressors, as the wild gun totors. And they were just defending their of. I love to correct the record on that sort of thing, especially for peaceful people like that, James.
Yeah. And it was fascinating to see the evolution of the federal court cases and the federal judges on that issue because there was a, I think Judge Navarro, maybe Gloria Navarro. Yeah. She started out very much leaning in favor of the FBI and the feds. But by the time, at a certain point, there were a number of very late revelations the feds made that blew their credibility to pieces.
And she basically threw the case out of court and gave the FBI a very thorough cussing. Yeah, the discovery process there on every one of those was so important and of know, I think, James, it harkens back to the days when they would try to have the kangaroo courts during the revolutionary era to take people away from their local juries and they try them up in Nova Scotia.
That was one of the things you wanted to have. Jury of your peers. People hear this information, even judges sometimes will stand up and say, you know what? This is just. Yeah, good for Judge Navarro. I was really pleased about that. James, any other thoughts on the FBI? I’d love to talk to you a little bit about something tied to the FBI, the war on drugs and things like civil asset forfeiture.
Sure, go for it. Okay, well, let’s talk a little bit about the so called war on drugs starting up with Lyndon Johnson. But even before that, certain statutes, a lot of the old jazz musicians finding that know we’re running into problems with the law. We’ve got an idea that somehow the person accused with some crime against others just for possessing a substance which is not a violent act of aggression against anyone, just the possession of a substance or the sale to a voluntary willing participant of a substance like drugs, whatever it might be, that somehow, first, any state agency, agency of the state in its normative sense, should be involved in stopping that person from engaging in that peaceful activity.
But on the constitutional level, the superstructure of this on a national and historical level for the United States. James Boulevard. We’ve got the so called war on drugs that has incentivized local police forces. And even the Obama administration threw down a screen with Eric Holder in there. And you talk about some of this, some of Eric Holder’s background on this, the so called war on drugs, the seizure of people’s property, and how it incentivizes the local police to engage in these types of raids because they can make tons of money.
They get to keep people’s stuff. Can you talk a little bit about the concept of civil asset forfeiture and how you approach it in last rights? James Boulevard. Yeah. Civil asset forfeiture means that the government come in and confiscate your property based on a mere allegation that it might have been misused at some time in the past. And there was, I think, a DEA agent who would say that the great thing about asset forfeiture is it’s not up to us to prove.
So if a government agent stops you walking down the street and he says, let me take a look at your wallet. And so he pulls out your cash, and then a drug dog comes up and the drug dog alerts to the drugs supposedly on your currency. Boom. That’s sufficient for the government to seize your currency. However, the vast majority of american currency has micro traces of drugs and sufficient to trigger a canine alert.
Judges have known that for 30 years, judges have been condemning this canine dog currency seizure as a bunch of crap going back to probably even before Bill Clinton’s presidency. Right? But it’s still there. And it’s almost like a monty python test of whether or not a woman is a witch. If she weighs more than a duck, she’s made of Wood. That’s it. That’s it. Got a drowner. Maybe she was eating crunchy frogs, I don’t know.
Yeah, that’s something I’ve always. And James, I mentioned this before you came on. I’ve done this on my liberty conspiracy show, but I’d like to show this for the David knight audience as I fill in for David Knight. James Bovard is our guest on the David Knight show, everybody, and place your questions in rock Finn chat. After we show this, get David’s thoughts about the conflict, the seeming bipolar problem between the so called war on drugs, unconstitutional, of course, and the so called war on terror, which has seen such a destruction of so many of the rights that are supposed to be protected by the US Bill of rights.
And, James, I’d like to turn right now to this. There might be a little ad that pops up. This is from 20 years ago. It’s Geraldo Rivera. On the ground in Afghanistan, as us soldiers guarded the heroin poppy crop. Government is here and is the opium trade. The Taliban is using it to intimidate the population. Joining us from Hauman province is Geraldo Rivera. Good morning to you, Geraldo.
Tell us what you’ve seen during your days there in Afghanistan. Hi, Allison, Dave and Clayton. Yes, in some ways, the marines brilliantly executed invasion of Marja. This town in the middle of Helman province, was the easy part. The hard part now is governing this province, a province, as you suggest, that has become addicted to opium in many, many ways. That is the principal crop that is being grown here.
The Taliban lend the farmers the money. They are indebted to the Taliban. They have to grow the opium. Now. The marines, in their success, are, in a sense, a victim of their success, because now the population know they have these opium fields and we are tolerating it. We are tolerating the cultivation of the opium because we know that if we were to destroy it now, the population would turn against the marines and it would be a real security risk.
Let me introduce Lieutenant Colonel Brian Christmas. He’s the commanding officer of the third battalion, six Marines. Really a wonderful group of marines here. I know that you care deeply about this contradiction, the fact that here you have one of the best fighting forces in the world ever mounted. And in a sense, you’re watching as this opium is being grown. I know it grinds at your gut. How do you deal with it? What are you doing about it? Well, frankly, this is part of the culture.
So while it might grind in my gut, it’s what they do. So it’s very interesting, James, I bring that up. Of course, knowing that they were unconstitutionally there, Ron Paul offered a declaration of war. He got three votes. Of course, he was not going to vote for it himself. And I thought that it was important to bring that up because we have this bipolar situation of the US government telling us they have this so called war on drugs, then invading a foreign nation, occupying it for two decades.
And as they’re occupying it, seeing the opium coming out of there increase and the proportion of the world’s trade going up to near 97% coming from Afghanistan. Now, James, just a few weeks ago, I was reading about how the Taliban, and again, I’m not in favor of one group destroying the crops of anybody. But Afghanistan is no longer number one on the export of opium poppy products. It’s now something like Myanmar or something like that.
They’ve dropped because the Taliban did get in there. And rather than doing what the government told us they would do, which would be to take over the fields and run them themselves, they’re destroying the fields. And it is amazing to me because we got people who are accustomed to the United States being in Afghanistan, even some military members. I’ve spoken to them and I’ve been at airports. I’ve seen them in their fatigues and I say, oh, are you heading out somewhere? They’re like, yeah, I’m going to Afghanistan.
I’m going to Iraq. And I say, listen, if you don’t want to answer this question, if it makes you feel uncomfortable, that’s okay. I don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable, but I know you swear an oath to the constitution. Yes. You will answer to constitutional orders. Yes, there is no declaration of war. The only way the president can send troops out constitutionally is if there’s a declaration of war.
How do you feel knowing that you sworn oath to the constitution, but they’re sending you out in a breach of the constitution and their answer always is, well, I do what they tell me, and I think that that is sad and of course, very frightening. And I hope that, I don’t want to be too explicit on it, but I hope that people will remember this is the type of policy, what we see right here on the screen.
This is the type of policy you get when people don’t try to keep tabs on their own ethics and what is right and wrong and contradictory based on government policy and what they were doing there. I wonder, James, if anybody could, you know, you are guarding those fields now we’re going to come in and do civil asset forfeiture on the US military now because, of course, you’re involved with a crime.
We can just take your jeeps. You think they would do that, James? Well, I think it might be difficult to collect if there is something, and I don’t know how long you can stay with us, James, but I do want to ask a couple of questions from. Excellent, excellent. So let’s head over to Rockfin and rumble chat and see what you have to say, everybody here on the David Knight show.
And here are some of the points that are brought up over at Rockpin. We’re seeing. Okay. They’re talking about Geraldo Rivera now. Yes, someone brought up the pandemic, the pandemic and the lockdowns. Love for you to be able to address some questions on that regarding civil liberties, James. And Michael DeSalvio says we should just grow it here in the United States. Very good point. And Hal 9000 Watson, I’m sure you understand the reference there.
James, a little dig on IBM says, oh, the american way. And they also say, no war on pharma drugs. Those are subsidized and protected. Let’s talk about the lockdowns for a second. James. You saw what was going on, and then we’ll talk about the Capitol building, maybe January 6, because you visited there and just seen the stark, in your face police state appearance and practice there and how things have changed.
Do you have any thoughts about the United States government, including various governors, most of them, and legislatures cracking down on people’s civil liberties, choosing essential, non essential businesses, shutting things down with vaccine, passports, the border, you got to be jabbed, all these types of things. There is a solid chapter in the book on the COVID crackdown craziness. I think one of the clearest lessons of the pandemic was that in the long run, people have more to fear from politicians than from a virus.
You had so many politicians who gave themselves dictatorial power. There were some great Supreme Court dissents during the early part of the pandemic. I believe it was Justice Gorsuch who was mocking the state of Nevada for putting very low limits for church attendance, but there was a much larger limit for going to the casinos. And he said it’s really difficult to reconcile the First Amendment with the. He had a very good line afterwards, trust me on that one.
But there were lots of good court decisions. But the hysteria by the media, most of the media, not all of it, in favor of unlimited government power. To see how the media made saints out of people like Fauci, in spite of all of his contradictions, in spite of his flip flops. It was almost as if groveling to the government was the only way people could be absolutely, absolutely right.
And his elitist El senor approach, looking down his nose at people the way that I wish Rand Paul had gone farther, I hope he continues to do more, not just questioning the gain of function, but questioning any of the United States government involvement in the jab research. And of course they called those countermeasures, claiming they could do that as a DoD type of preparatory thing against a potential attack by some foreign nation developing a virus.
But they’re the ones who developed the virus indirectly through Eco Health alliance, moving it from North Carolina over to Wuhan. So all of it is unconstitutional. And here’s the quote on page 77, folks, from Neil Gorsuch. James writes in his new book, last Rights, available at the Libertarian Institute, also on Amazon. James Bovard at Jim Bovard on Twitter politicians effectively promised to banish all Covid risk by obliterating individual liberty.
But according to the Centers for Disease Control, most Americans still contracted Covid despite, quote, the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country, end quote. As Neil Gorsuch declared in 2023, those lockdowns destroyed millions of jobs, spurred hundreds of thousands of bankruptcies, and sparked far more suicides, alcoholism and drug abuse. Jim everything from local schools and the teachers unions pushing for even more outside the school, so called education, everything from parents speaking up about that sort of thing and the way that they were speaking up about wokism being detected by the DOE, then working with the National School Boards association to try to concoct a narrative that the concerned parents were somehow potential domestic terror threats and then getting the FBI to investigate them, which was halted, supposedly, but not really when they got discovered to the lockdowns, the jab, passports, and as I’ve mentioned, the use of HIPAA, the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability act, supposedly to protect our privacy.
But in between pages 75 and 95 of the PDF, people can see how the head of HHS can demand medical records from anybody who is in a medical profession who accepts Medicare and Medicaid patients to things like the people bringing in things on trucks from Canada. You’ve got to be jabbed to all sorts of things. You can protest for BLM, but you can’t protest for your own rights to protest.
Unbelievable, unbelievable encroachments, and they cannot be forgotten. These sorts of things have to be remembered and they have to be fought. They have to be fought on a local, state, and federal level. And it just amazes me that so many people just allow these things to come out. And the lies Fauci openly saying, well, yes, I lied about masks, and now I’m giving you a spurious reason, is because I think they’re so important to have masks when everybody knows the masks aren’t important.
Just absurd. What were some of the standout things as you went back on this? Because there’s so much regarding the lockdowns and the lies from the federal government and the constitutional side of things and people’s, well, there’s, yeah, I’ve got a section in the COVID chapter on how the Biden White House browbeat the FDA to force them to give full approval for the Pfizer vaccine for Covid because they had to have that before Biden imposed his mandate for all americans working for large companies to get vaccines and to see the absolute contempt for anyone who did not roll over in command.
Shortly after Biden gave his speech in September 2021 on his Vax mandates, Biden showed up on CNN and he said that the only reason that people weren’t getting vaccines because they want the freedom to kill you with their COVID virus. These are lines which have never really showed up in the media radar screen. People do recall that Biden promised that if you get the injection, then you won’t get Covid.
And that was a false statement even when he said it, because the CDC knew there were a torrent of breakthrough cases, but the feds were covering them up. But then the COVID up collapsed. Absolutely. And we know that even during the early testing, they then got rid of their control group. They ended up giving them the injection. The whole thing was absurd. And again, that goes towards my libertarian argument of don’t put your faith in the central authority that then can be gamed for rent seekers to try to make sure their stuff gets through, especially when you got that revolving door.
And as we’ve discussed with your amazing book, the Fair Trade fraud, some of the biggest corporations have big incentives to make sure that their competition is knocked out and they get either government contracts or tariffs that will protect them or mandates to say, you must use this product. And this is exactly what Biden did. It’s amazing to me to think that people think that this sort of thing can be reformed without actually at least questioning the very moral and ethical premises on which these people base their arguments that you must be forced to pay for your own protection because it doesn’t work.
It never works that way. You’re not going to get any satisfaction if the agency that is supposed to protect you can just take your money at any time. They’re actually a protection know, and this is something which compounds with the censorship stuff because, okay, so you had the Biden folks come in and Biden was hell bent on persuading people that the COVID vaccines that had only emergency use approval were Panacea’s.
And so what the Biden White House did was crack down on Twitter and Facebook and force them to suppress people making jokes about COVID vaccines. If you only made some kind of meme on Twitter, it’s like, boom, you were suppressed. Because it was as if the COVID vaccines would only work if freedom of speech was destroyed. That’s absolutely right, James. Absolutely right. And I’ll point something out to you.
I don’t know whether you’ve gotten to see his tweet today, but Glenn Jacobs mentioned this on Twitter. I’ll see if I can find it. Very quickly on Twitter. He brought up, I retweeted it, that since he is mayor of Knox county, of course, he’s the former pro wrestler who played Kane here in New Hampshire. Bench press five. What’s that? I was talking to him once at a conference.
He told me he’s bench pressed 520. Wow. Are you kidding me? No serious stuff. So I’m not going to argue with him. All right, well, that’s excellent. Yeah. Let me see if I can find this tweet. I could paraphrase it, but let me see if I can just give this to you, because he mentioned that Deborah Burks joined him and other people who were involved with government in Tennessee in a closed door meeting.
And he mentioned that she told people that a lot of the information they had about. And I don’t want to be too explicit here because I’d rather read what he said, but I’ll see if I can find it here. Yeah, Burks came to Knoxville in September 2020. Is that the one? Yes, that’s it. Do you have it on yours, James? Yeah, I have it on my. Feel free to read that.
This is quoting Glenn Jacobs. He says that in a private meeting, Burks told us that bars and restaurants should be closed. She admitted that the data didn’t support it, but said it was necessary to, quote, send a message about the seriousness of the virus. That’s marketing, not science, says Glenn Jacobs. Good job, Glenn. And he is a great, great guy. In fact, I think we might have met either the year you were up here for the libertarian porcupine festival and Naomi Wolf was here, or it might have been the year after that.
But, yeah, very good guy. And of course, he lives down in Tennessee now. And, yeah, it’s amazing to see the stuff that was going on. And Glenn fought tooth and nail to try to prevent those sorts of mandates in Knox county. And good for. It’s. It’s you guys that come from the country, James, you’re still holding up the side for truth. It’s my redneck heritage. Yeah. And, you know, I have some comments.
They’re also showing comments now. People are watching us on Twitter. Previously, it would be difficult to comment on Twitter. You would have to go in. And just now people are commenting. I’ve got. Thank you so much for watching the David Knight show, CHS eight four three on Twitterx and he mentioned Freeway Rick Ross. And of course, the terrible things that happened to freeway Rick Ross cleaned up his life.
He says Trump might push for NATO to be closed as I wouldn’t. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch on that one, my friend. I don’t think they’re going to see that happen, but who knows? You can always be hopeful. And let’s see, over on Rockfin chat, Scott Atlas had some very interesting things to say on the highwire about Burke’s end company. Yes, Scott Atlas was talking about the inner workings there and how he kept getting shut out.
They would start to have meetings even without him. They wouldn’t even call on him. Once they found out what his position would be, he wouldn’t be there. And yeah, there’s so many interesting things to discuss. James, what do you think stands out as you think about all the stories that you have in there? Is there something that you would want to really stress to the audience? One or two items here before we close things off with you.
And thank you very much. If you have to go, go for it. Thanks for all your kind comments. Thanks for the excellent questions. I guess the overview I’d want folks to take away is just the fundamental principle of what happens when politicians, government officials can claim control of your life. And then once they have that established, it’s an unlimited series of often idiotic dictates. I mean, you think of TSA, what you’ve got to do when you’re flying.
You think of the COVID lockdowns, you think of a lot of other federal mandates that are helping wreck this country, wrecking our prosperity. You think of how the government is destroying our currency. And people in DC don’t give a damn because they’re mostly all very well paid and there’s just so much damage that the political class is inflicting on the nation. And people need to fundamentally reevaluate how they look at the US government and american politicians.
It’s interesting, I was commenting on Facebook, someone had had some posts from a few years earlier, and I was replying to someone and said something like, well, I hope that we can whip the political rascals in the coming years. And Facebook gave me a warning for talking about whipping the political rascal. And I was thinking, ok, I guess that they’re not familiar with Thomas Payne saying that politicians were the most rascally group of humanity, but there is this concerted effort to make people deferential to the ruling class and to make it seem like the real problem is that people who talk about whipping the political rascals, not all the lies and abuses from the Washington elite.
James Bovard at Jim Bovard on Twitter, your website. Great conversation recently with Tom woods. There’s just awesome stuff. Libertarian Institute, everybody check out the Libertarian Institute. This is a libertarian institute publication. And James, before you go, I’ll refer once more to that page 77 because you have that quote in there and this should be sufficient. Just this statement should be enough for people to say, okay, I need to fight back for truth because we knew this was false the minute he said it.
Quote, you’re not going to get Covid if you have these injections. July 21, 2021. President Joe Biden and you wrote, the Covid-19 pandemic opened a Pandora’s box of perils to freedom, prosperity and health. Though judges torpedoed a few despotic decrees, politicians fanned pandemic fears to seize nearly absolute power despite pervasive abuses, not a single government official spent a day in jail for the most politically exploited pandemic in american history.
And James, their excuses about so called public health run not only in conjunction with the nonsense of that man, Joe Biden, but run counter to individual liberty. It’s a consequentialist view and they have excused the attack on everybody’s individual rights. There’s no such thing as public health. There’s only individual health. And the minute someone tells you I’m in a group of people, we’re in charge and we are going to decide what the public health is and what we can do to you.
They’re immediately negating their own argument because you are just a member, as everybody else is of this group. And if they can threaten you, if they can threaten you, they can threaten somebody else who’s not threatened today, they can threaten him tomorrow because they’re always going to be there. This is so important, this book. Thank you. Hey, thanks so much for the kind words. Thanks for doing a great job of pulling out some of the best parts of the book.
I really appreciate that. Gardener. You got it, James. You got just, I just get so appreciative of your work. James, any thoughts, people, just to mention where people can find you as you head off and continue working various places? I’ve been doing quite a bit lately for the New York Post. I’ve done some stuff for measies Institute, Brownstone, american conservative magazine, other places, which I should not be forgetting, but I am.
Well, no problem. James Bovard is with us. And James, next time I bring you on, maybe I’ll play that rifleman soundtrack in honor of a great show of a guy came from good country stock and fought for goodness. Or maybe I’ll play there’s a song called high on drugs about the drug war and all those high on drugs. Hey, I was trying to polish up my boy scout image.
That would help. Well, James, thank you so much. Next time we’ll also talk about some of your personal reflections as you walked around the Capitol and saw some of the very things that people can see just by looking at the COVID of your book, the razor wire on the Capitol. Just a quick comment. The photo and the covers was one that I took when I was on a hike going around the Capitol when it was thousands of national Guard troops with M camouflage.
And it was like, I felt like american democracy has finally been perfected. Well, how dare you engage in photography without a license, you charlatan, you. You evil man. Don’t you understand? And how dare you put these pictures out on social media. Nina Jankovicz is going to sing at you, my friend. You better watch out. Well, it’ll serve me right. Thanks so much GARDNER Thanks, James. James Bovard, folks.
Thank you, James Bovard so much for being a guest on the David Knight show. And boy, he calls up the Glenn Jacobs quote right off the bat. Great stuff, everyone. Have a terrific day as we round off the program of the David Knight show tomorrow, Tony Arterburn of Wise Wolf Gold and Silver Exchange will be here. And Handy says this. Of course, handy’s profession and EMT work says, I have a hard time even using the word Covid when I’ve never seen anything worse than what looks like a cold flu.
But I’ve seen the jab, maim and kill several harps in Australia. Have some marmite for me, my friend. Have a great day, everyone. Stay free. And great show. Guard, thank you so much. Karen Carpenter says I like to learn. Karen Carpenter, many hearts to you, little john. Thank you, occult priestess. Watch occult priestess on Rock Finn, she is amazing and what a wonderful gracious host. And matthew Ronson, thank you.
Photo taking photos is dangerous. Hal 9000, thank you very much. And chev Ken. Three, two, one. Thank you very much for being there. I appreciate all of you being there maloney. Thank you, matthew Ronson. Thank you. I appreciate that, everyone. Tomorrow I won’t be here, but I’ll be here Friday. We’re going to do a little countdown on Friday and we’re going to have a little special guest for the countdown.
I’m looking forward to that. It’s going to be super awesome, super mega awesome. And if you detect a smile on my face, it’s because I’m playing something goofy. So it’s going to be fun. And join me tonight on liberty conspiracy at 06:00 we’ll run through even more breaking stories. News resources, the David Knight show, thedavidnightshow. com. Check it out. Remember, if you want to get involved with gerald celente’s great work, check out Gerald cilente’s work.
And if you want to get Gerald Celente’s publication, then you can get a 10% discount with Gerald cilente. And I got to say, so many people working for freedom, whether you get trends journal or you’re going to watch redacted or whatever, you’re watching my liberty conspiracy. Thanks. Thanks for being interested. Really appreciate it. I’ll leave you again with a little ad for David Knight’s great music and a little something to recognize David and the kindness of them welcoming me to the show.
So let’s check it out, everybody. Thank you very much watching the show. Don’t forget, if you do want to contribute over on Rockfin and Rumble, everything goes to them. Still have a chance to do so. And I really appreciate it. And share the show after the fact. Great to have you there, ga boy. Thank you so much. And we’ll see you again on Friday. Tony Arterburn tomorrow, 09:00 a.
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