by Bob Barr | Sep 21, 2020 | Uncategorized |
Daily Caller It is easy to understand the fear in the minds of Democrat Party leaders prompted by President Trump and Senate Majority Leader McConnell stating that they will in fact move forward to nominate and schedule a confirmation vote for a replacement for recently-deceased Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg. That fear has ignited a barrage of proposals that prove beyond doubt the Democrats will stop at nothing to deny Trump a third appointment to the Court and to deny Republicans any future opportunities. They will stop at nothing.It is by no means certain that McConnell could muster 50 votes to confirm Trump’s nominee, but if he does it would result in a potential 6-3 “conservative” majority on the High Court. This drives abject fear into the very core of the Democrat Party and the pro-abortion movement in this country. The possibility of a Supreme Court that might to even a tiny degree limit abortion rights is a danger to be opposed with every tool possible, regardless of how such actions might damage the Court, the Senate, or the Constitution itself.The irrationality and borderline idiocy of some of the statements by Democrat leaders is stunning, even by today’s loose standards. Democratic Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar declared that the Republicans “stole” the last appointment to the Court (the 2018 confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh) and that the GOP is now “trying to do it again.” Actually, all President Trump has said he intends to do is exercise his clear constitutional prerogative and submit a nominee to the Senate for its “advice and consent”; nothing more, nothing less, and hardly indicative of “stealing” anything.Democratic Hawaii...
by Bob Barr | Sep 16, 2020 | Townhall Article |
Townhall Nicholas Sandmann, the Catholic high school student who recently settled defamation lawsuits against CNN and the Washington Post, is again in the crosshairs of the Left as he prepares to enter college.In a vivid display of the degree to which the Left — this time those embedded in academia — will mercilessly hound anyone they do not like (particularly someone who has successfully challenged them), members and alumni of Kentucky’s Transylvania University, a school which has admitted Sandmann, publicly are talking about him as if he were a Manchurian Candidate on a mission to destroy the university. He is being called a dangerous “provocateur in training” and a troublemaker because he likely will disrupt classes by daring to question their teachings. Avery Tompkins, a professor at Transylvania and one of its “diversity scholars,” criticized Sandmann for belonging to groups that hold “anti-intellectualist views.” Media reports quoting the professor did not clarify which groups she considers to be “anti-intellectualist” or what she believes the term means. Her dislike for Sandmann was echoed by Samuel Crankshaw who is an alumnus of the University and a communications official with the ACLU. Crankshaw labeled Transylvania’s decision to admit the young “provocateur” a “stain” on the institution.Compare the manner by which the media and academia are treating Sandmann with the fawning praise they lavished on another high school student who found himself in the media spotlight — David Hogg, one of the students who survived the 2018 mass shooting at his high school in Parkland, Florida.Unlike Sandmann, who comports himself publicly with quiet reserve, Hogg became the Left’s foul-mouthed poster child for gun control immediately following his ordeal....
by Bob Barr | Sep 14, 2020 | Uncategorized |
Daily Caller It takes a lot to make China’s Communist Party sweat, but Beijing is seriously concerned with the Trump administration’s aggressive stance against its long-standing spying operations and theft of intellectual property and consumer data. In a clear indication of just how worried the Chinese government is, just last week it outlined what it dubbed a “Global Initiative on Data Security” in hopes of gaining allies to alleviate some of the pressure from Washington.Foreign Minister Wang Yi publicly stated that the purpose of the initiative is to debunk the “groundless accusations” of a “certain country.” This is typical Chinese legerdemain — issue a document full of flowery rhetoric but devoid of substance, as a smokescreen to camouflage what it is doing in fact.China’s theft of U.S. data was first elevated to the national spotlight in the late 1990s while I was serving in the U.S. House. In response to eyebrow-raising reports and testimony, we voted in 1998 to create a special task force investigating whether China was illicitly obtaining data on U.S. missile and weapons technology. The resulting “Cox Report” confirmed our worst fears; through decades of calculated intelligence operations, China had stolen design information on some of our most sensitive weapons systems.Sadly, the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations did little to address the problems described in the Cox Report. China continued to spy and steal, while occasionally putting up a fig leaf or two to convince Washington and the world it was reforming past practices.Today, while the regime’s data collection methods may have shifted somewhat, the national security threat they pose are in fact even more serious than two decades ago....
by Bob Barr | Sep 9, 2020 | Townhall Article |
Townhall.com Serving as the U.S. Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 was in many respects the most rewarding and enjoyable job of my life. Enforcing federal laws under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush according to the solemn oath I took to protect lives, property and businesses in the Northern District of Georgia, allowed me to work with many fine local prosecutors and then-state Attorney General Mike Bowers, who all shared my commitment to the rule of law. That experience is why it deeply disturbs me now to see a number of current district attorneys and even some state attorneys general who have twisted their oaths of office in ways that actually pit them against law enforcement, and in support of criminals rather than victims of crime. The longer such officials remain in office and are allowed to abuse their power, the more deeply will the essential and fundamental underpinnings of our justice system be damaged.For several election cycles, this design has been the center of billionaire leftist George Soros’ evil plan to remake America’s justice system in his warped image of a socialist-based system pitting rich against poor and condoning mob rule. In this worldview, prosecutors simply refuse to prosecute laws on the books if doing so offends their personal philosophy of “social justice.” Accordingly, people who steal and loot are immune from prosecution if they engaged in such criminal acts in order to get things they need or want but were not able (or willing) to obtain them lawfully.Examples can be seen in so-called “Blue State” cities everywhere, including of course, in California.In the Golden State, Contra Costa County...
by Bob Barr | Sep 8, 2020 | Uncategorized |
Daily CallerMost Americans – probably the vast majority – have very little idea what the United States Supreme Court really does. Sure, whenever the High Court issues a ruling on an abortion case or decides a matter involving the Second Amendment, the media is all over it and the public becomes aware that the Court is there. Abortion and guns aside, however, rulings by our nation’s highest court often impact our daily lives in far more ways than do those high-profile decisions everyone hears about.In just a few weeks, the Court will hear arguments in a truly landmark case that will significantly impact Google, the world’s most heavily used search engine, controlling over 92% of that market worldwide.Google actually is owned by Alphabet, but everyone outside the tech industry itself knows the search engine as “Google” not “Alphabet” or anything else. The search engine enjoys such a ubiquitous presence that its name has been recognized officially in dictionaries as a transitive verb.The specific case on which the nine Justices will hear arguments has little to do with the average person who “Googles,” but a great deal to do with copyright law. Although hardly a matter for dinner table chatter in suburbia, copyright law indirectly affects much of what every person reads, listens to or views on their computer; but perhaps most importantly, how they conduct research on a computer or smartphone.The specifics of the case to be heard by the Court – Google v. Oracle – relate to something called “application programming interfaces” or “API” for short. API play a major role in software development, which in a sense is the...
