by Bob Barr | Sep 2, 2020 | Townhall Article |
Townhall Monday, after months of self-quarantine in his basement, former Vice President Joe Biden emerged to deliver a speech in Pittsburgh. However, rather than present an image of a revitalized, coherent candidate, Biden confirmed what many in America have long-known about him – that he plays fast and loose with the facts and remains clueless about what is happening in the world outside his Washington-centric bubble.Most telling in this regard were Biden’s repeated efforts to blame President Trump for the violence that for months has plagued cities from coast to coast and in the country’s heartland; communities that have been living for years if not decades under ineffectual Democrat Party control. Blaming Donald Trump, a Republican president, for violence in Democrat-run cities even after he has repeatedly denounced it and offered assistance to help quell it, bordered on the ludicrous, but was not the only mendacious story offered up by the former vice president on Monday.For example, the former vice president charged that Trump deployed “secret federal troops” to protect federal property. This claim would be startling if true, but it is utterly without foundation. The Trump Administration did order federal law enforcement officers to protect federal facilities, buildings, and personnel in Portland, Oregon, for example, when they were attacked repeatedly by violent mobs. There was, however, nothing “secret” about the deployment, and there were only civilian federal law enforcement officers involved, not “federal troops.” Considering the many research staff and speech writers available to Biden as both a former vice president and a current presidential nominee, we are left to conclude either that he knew such a statement...
by Bob Barr | Aug 31, 2020 | Uncategorized |
Daily CallerAmericans justifiably are concerned about foreign entities working to influence the outcome of our 2020 elections. There is, however, one party with just such a plan already well underway and well-funded that is far closer to Main Street, USA than any foreign entity — George Soros.Soros and a handful of fellow far-left true believers are well on their way to investing billions of dollars to ensure that tens of millions of mailed-in ballots decide who will be our next president.On the surface, their plan appears benign and wholly in the public interest, with nary a hint of the leftist agenda for which Soros is well known. For example, a recent story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution described an effort by a pair of nonprofit organizations to mail more than two million applications for absentee ballots to voters across Georgia. The article noted that the organizations – the Center for Voter Information and the Voter Participation Center – plan to follow this initial tranche of absentee voter applications with additional mail drops in the coming weeks.These mass mailings are designed to ensure that as many voters as possible receive absentee ballots, ostensibly to protect them from the “dangers” posed by the coronavirus were they forced to vote in person. It is revealing, however, that the applications are not being sent to voters generally, but only to those described as “irregular voters,” who traditionally or historically do not vote.Americans justifiably are concerned about foreign entities working to influence the outcome of our 2020 elections. There is, however, one party with just such a plan already well underway and well-funded that is...
by Bob Barr | Aug 26, 2020 | Townhall Article |
TownhallParents across America being forced to deal with the technological and administrative burdens of “distance learning” face severe consequences, even potential criminal charges, if they fail to meet these challenges.One might think that actually getting a student to sit in front of a laptop for hours on end would be a victory in and of itself. Now, however, parents have the added stress of making sure nothing that might be seen on camera behind and around the child shows anything that could be considered politically incorrect, or that might trigger a report to the “authorities.” Failure to do so could result in a visit from the police. This is exactly what happened to the mother of a fifth-grade boy in Baltimore.The student was a Boy Scout and his mother a Navy veteran. They made what turned out to be a serious mistake during a distance learning session, when they failed to realize that hanging on a wall behind where the boy sat for his video learning session were two BB guns, including a fabled “Red Ryder” model. This oversight was sufficient to trigger fear in the fifth-grade teacher on the other end of the video session, who quickly reported the “disturbing” images to her school principal. Up the chain of command the report went, from the teacher, to the principal, and to the police who were summoned to search the house for “weapons.” Even more disturbing than the fact that a teacher apparently became traumatized at the sight of a BB gun on a bedroom wall, was the fact that, according to media accounts, the initial call came from “a concerned parent.”The Baltimore...
by Bob Barr | Aug 24, 2020 | Uncategorized |
Daily Caller In politics, if you say something loud enough and often enough, people will believe it. The Democrats have employed this strategy in the current controversy about mail-in voting, bellowing repeatedly that President Trump is trying to sabotage the November election by tampering with the U.S. Postal Service’s ability to handle mail-in ballots, which the Democrats see as the future for their party’s electoral victories. Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s orchestration of last Saturday’s 257-150 House vote gifting $25 billion to the USPS was their latest gambit.The reality, of course, is far different from the Democrat narrative, as Republican Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson established at a Senate hearing he chaired the day before the House vote, labelling the Democrat charges nothing but a conspiratorial “false political narrative.”The difficulties facing the USPS in the Internet Age has been one of the worst kept secrets in Washington. Study after study has documented how internet communications, especially e-mails, have taken a huge bite out of letter mail. A report by the Treasury Department in December 2018 accurately identified this culprit, noting that “the shift toward digital correspondence and the corresponding decline in USPS mail volume” has resulted in the Service “losing money for more than a decade and is on an unsustainable financial path.” This study was not the first to sound the alarm about the financial difficulties facing the USPS, nor has it been the last.A September 2019 report by the USPS Inspector General noted that the continuing challenges facing the Service were not being met, resulting in “processing mail with lower productivity for manual, flats, and letters.” In layman’s terms, this...
by Bob Barr | Aug 19, 2020 | Townhall Article |
Townhall To some extent, most crimes are relatively easy to explain. For example, greed leads to theft; anger often is a predicate to violence; a desire to “belong” pushes many teenagers to join gangs; and marital discord lies at the root of far too many murders. But the cold-blooded murder of a young child, like 5-year-old Cannon Hinnant, defies all rational understanding or explanation — a senseless act by an individual who has lost all touch with humanity. It is the very definition of inhuman.It is difficult to recount the details of young Cannon’s murder without being moved to tears. Although the incident was largely ignored by the mainstream media, the pointlessness and savagery of the murder, apparently without any conceivable explanation or motive, is deeply unsettling. Cannon Hinnant’s murder starkly illustrates the reality that America’s moral soul is dying.America was founded as a sanctuary for religious refugees. At its core and since its creation, our country has been a society with a shared belief in God and on the moral virtues to which our Founders explicitly paid tribute. It was this spirit of moral integrity that helped turn America into the world’s guiding light for hope and freedom.Today, that light is decidedly dimmed. Looking at the violence-torn streets of Portland, Chicago, New York, and so many other cities and communities, it has become virtually impossible to recognize the country “made only for a moral and religious People,” as John Adams once wrote. On the surface the looting and violence may appear to some observers as political acts; but roving mobs beating people within an inch of their lives is much...
