by Bob Barr | Aug 23, 2022 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerUncle Sam’s irresponsible management of the massive student loan program, accelerated by the Biden administration’s loan “forgiveness” policies, will cost American taxpayers in excess of $311 billion – more than triple the annual budget for the sprawling U.S. Department of Education.The ballooning cost of the loan program, which includes previously projected income that will never materialize, plus nearly $200 billion in direct losses, has been calculated not by a Republican policy group aiming to undercut Biden’s pet student loan forgiveness policy, but by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office.Both Democrat and Republican administrations have endorsed and funded the government’s direct student loan program, first launched 30 years ago. Since then, it has grown beyond a secondary source of funding for students’ post-secondary education into the single largest source of federal funding for such pursuits. It has also become the second-largest consumer debt category nationally after home mortgages, but with an astronomically higher default rate — projected to reach 40% by next year. It is these troubling aspects of the loan program that have fueled pressure on the Biden administration to pursue a reckless loan forgiveness policy.Biden faces significant pressure from within the Democrat Party, most vocally from its hard-left wing, to take the leap and simply “forgive” the outstanding loans — or at least a significant portion of them for certain classes of borrowers or up to certain amounts. While the president appears both philosophically and politically inclined to jump into that financial morass, his actions so far have been more tentative. For example, the administration already has written off the books more than $30 billion based on allegations that certain borrowers’ were misled or...
by Bob Barr | Aug 17, 2022 | Townhall Article |
TownhallWith citizens across the country understandably focused on increased rates of urban violent crime, and with local and state law enforcement agencies suffering under manpower shortages, another crime headache could not come at a worse time. This is, however, what law enforcement may be facing in the coming months; and in fact, already is facing in Atlanta, Georgia – the resurgence of eco-terrorism.Just outside the bustling downtown environs of Atlanta, in a still-heavily wooded area known as “Intrenchment Creek Park,” a group of anarchists, environmental extremists, and anti-police activists have declared war on the construction of a new and desperately needed police training facility for the Atlanta Police Department. Breaking with the largely non-violent measures employed in recent years by environmental absolutists, this new generation of “forest defenders” has returned to the violent tactics that characterized the movement decades ago and saw multi-million dollar arson campaigns from Oregon to Colorado and beyond. While the overarching goal of these environmental extremists is claimed to be reducing the “threats” to the environment causing global warming, the group in Atlanta has updated and expanded that mission statement.In a new wrinkle on the environmental focus of these “green defenders,” the still-loose “movement” that has reared its head in Atlanta, claims as part of its mission protecting minority and native American communities against harm allegedly caused by law enforcement and by commercial development (in this case, the construction of a new movie studio in the same area as the police training center).The tactics of these post-2020 anti-police activists, however, are well-known to law enforcement officials who have followed the trail of burned buildings and vehicles dating back to the...
by Bob Barr | Aug 15, 2022 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerMany Republican office holders have been frothing at the mouth as they air claims that an FBI-initiated search of Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago resort and residence was “unprecedented,” “intolerable,” “un-American,” and a step toward “communism.” This raises the question – when did the GOP adopt as part of its governing philosophy the principle that a former president’s residence, including one which doubles as a ritzy resort, cannot be the subject of a lawfully executed search warrant?Sitting U.S. presidents enjoy a significant degree of insulation from civil and criminal proceedings to which virtually all other citizens are subject, and this is appropriate. Were the holder of such high office subject to civil lawsuits and resulting discovery proceedings by every possible aggrieved party, or vulnerable to prosecutors seeking to make a name for themselves by indicting him, it would become utterly impossible for a president to carry out his constitutional duties.This is why the only way to remove a president is via impeachment and conviction by the Congress. It also stands as the reason for maintaining a very high bar for litigants to overcome in order to force a sitting president to respond to civil judicial proceedings. A former president, however, while perhaps allowed an elevated degree of deference in such matters, has never been considered absolutely immune.Claiming that the August 8th execution of the search warrant is an “un-American” step on the road to “communism” because it is “unprecedented” – that is, it happens to be the first time a search warrant has been executed on an ex-president’s residence – makes no sense, but has become a repetitive GOP talking point in the aftermath...
by Bob Barr | Aug 10, 2022 | Townhall Article |
TownhallGeorge Washington University, located in the heart of our nation’s Capital, is widely considered a top-tier institution of higher learning. It also is among the most expensive schools in the country. Notwithstanding such pedigree, the university in recent months has shown the country that both its student body and its board of trustees rank among the dumbest in our nation.Just two months ago, for example, the GW Board of Trustees decided to “retire” the school’s long-time moniker, the “Colonials.” This decision resulted from a three-year long study which concluded that trashing the mascot was essential because the term “colonial” triggered visions of slavery and colonization, and was therefore anathema to the “unifying” purpose of a school moniker.Meanwhile, as the trustees now turn their attention to finding a more soothing and less “divisive” moniker (a process proposed to consume another year or more of their time), George Washington’s student body has been busy trashing no less a distinguished constitutional law lecturer than Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who has taught a seminar at the university’s law school for more than a decade. While the vast majority of law schools in America would trip over themselves to have a Supreme Court justice lead a seminar on constitutional law – or would have done so before today’s “woke culture” turned academia on its head – GW students have just thumbed their collective nose at such a godsend.The reason for such a move by the students? Abortion — the new holy grail of leftwing politics.In late June, the High Court rendered a decision overturning the 1973 landmark abortion-rights case, Roe v. Wade. In the opinion of...
by Bob Barr | Aug 3, 2022 | Townhall Article |
TownhallThere was a time long ago in America’s civic institutions, where men and women who had accomplished great things for our country and for mankind, were studied by students of all ages — George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Jonas Salk, and many other notables adorned classrooms and textbooks in schools across the country.Now, in an increasing number of public schools children are present with a far different role model. The age of the Drag Queen has arrived.This loony phenomenon, presented as lessons in “diversity” and “acceptance,” has even found its way into churches, and not just fringe religious sects, but mainstream denominations – Lutheran, Methodist, Catholic, and Episcopal — presented not only as lewd sideshows, but as official religious services. The United Methodist Church, for example, has accepted as a candidate for full pastoral ordination, a “Drag Queen Pastor” who proclaims himself a “dragavangelist” and laces his sermons with profanity and gibberish about “divine queerness.”It might be argued in defense of such activities that if adults wish to attend religious services extolling men dressed as women who prance down the aisle like court jesters, they are free to do so, as long as attendance is voluntary. Disturbingly, this lunacy goes beyond consensual adult activity, as with a Lutheran Church in Chicago recently hosting a “Drag Queen Prayer Time” for children during its Sunday service. As frequently happens with contemporary cultural phenomena, they tend to bleed across national boundaries, and churches in Canada reportedly are witnessing the same “Drag Queen Evangelism” infecting the U.S. Such expansive reach is made easy through social media, including the Chinese-controlled Tik Tok platform,...
