by Bob Barr | Aug 17, 2020 | Uncategorized |
Daily Caller Arguments will continue to rage over whether President Trump is constitutionally permitted on his own to spend money to build the wall on our southern border, to fund measures addressing the effects of COVID-19 or to manage federal immigration policies. However, there is one order the president could give that is clearly within his authority to manage the executive branch he heads, and which is entirely consistent with the no-nonsense management style that has characterized his time in office: direct all federal departments, offices, and agencies to immediately stop sending employees to “critical race theory” training, also known as “white privilege” reeducation programs.While descriptions of critical race theory training have surfaced recently in the wake of racially motivated or racially excused rioting, training which teaches federal employees that “white privilege” and “racism” are systemic diseases that define American society, have been around for decades. It is long past time that such wasteful spending stop.It is difficult to place an accurate figure on how much taxpayer money is spent each year on these programs by federal agencies and by non-governmental entities receiving federal dollars, such as the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, but it is in the millions of dollars. Numerous self-styled experts in “white privilege” have reaped lucrative incomes from such lecturing. Just one of these charlatans, Howard Ross, reportedly billed the federal government $3 million in just one year. Robin DiAngelo, the best-selling author of “White Fragility,” reportedly charges $40,000 to share her “expertise” for just half a day.Just what taxpayers get in return, other than lectures on the evils of “hard work” and “rugged...
by Bob Barr | Aug 12, 2020 | Townhall Article |
TownhallWhen it comes to undercover investigative journalists, there are few better than Project Veritas’ James O’Keefe. In the last decade, O’Keefe’s undercover exposés have revealed the corrupt underbelly of some of the Left’s most revered institutions (such as Planned Parenthood), as well as exposing the incompetence that infects many government agencies. O’Keefe’s advocacy has earned him many friends but also enemies, including some inside the government. A recent event suggests the FBI is among those not happy with O’Keefe.The incident in question happened when O’Keefe, a resident of New York, tried to purchase a firearm from a retailer in that state. Although he has never been convicted of a felony and does not fall within any of the eight other reasons under federal law that would prohibit him from buying a gun, he was turned down. The FBI figures in this equation because since 1998, it has been responsible for maintaining the database of information through which all retail firearm sales must be checked (the so-called “NICS” system). If there is no information in the database establishing that the purchaser falls into one of the classes of persons prohibited from possessing a gun, the sale may proceed. On the other hand, if the database reveals that a purchaser falls within one of the prohibitory categories, the retailer is notified and the sale cannot lawfully go forward. Since O’Keefe demonstrably does not fall within one of the disabling categories, his purchase should have been promptly approved. That it was not, raises suspicions that the FBI has on its own decided it does not want him to have a firearm and therefore told...
by Bob Barr | Aug 10, 2020 | Uncategorized |
Daily Caller Politicians love anniversaries, especially those recalling tragic events. Every time an anniversary of such a public event occurs — whether the first, fifth, tenth or twenty-fifth — some politician will rush to remind the public of the past event as a way to position himself or herself as a true leader, by calling for the government to do whatever it is they want done that would have prevented the prior tragedy or which they claim will prevent its recurrence.This past week, amidst the myriad problems relating to the COVID pandemic and the recurring violence destroying lives, property and businesses in cities across the country, Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine used the bully pulpit of his office to again call for the state legislature to pass gun control measures he has long championed. The timing for his latest call was the anniversary of a shooting spree last August 4th by an individual outside a Dayton, Ohio bar who fatally shot nine people before he was shot dead by police.In the immediate aftermath of that 2019 shooting, DeWine issued a call for the legislature to pass a long list of gun control measures, including many that bore no relationship to the manner by which the Dayton shooter — a 26-year old white male with antifa sympathies — was able to obtain the firearm he used to carry out his horrific crime.Included in DeWine’s proposal were measures constituting what has become known in recent years as a “Red Flag Law.” Such a law empowers law enforcement officers and other individuals including friends or relatives of a gun owner, to obtain a...
