by Bob Barr | May 23, 2023 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerIn 1962, the BBC launched a political comedy show called That Was The Week That Was (“TW3”). While the show ran for only two seasons (cancelled in 1964 for fear it would impact that year’s British elections), it spawned a similarly titled but also short-lived television show in the U.S. that focused on political satire.Over just the past several days, the Left has provided us with more than sufficient satire to fill an hour-long TW3 show, not even counting the ongoing physical and mental bloopers by President Biden. The New York City Council led the most recent comedic parade when it passed a measure adding “weight discrimination” to the city’s growing list of factors that employers and others may not consider in making business or other decisions. The legislation has been sent to Mayor Eric Adams, who himself had written a book in 2020 recounting his journey losing 35 pounds on a “plant-based diet.” While illegal immigration and subway crime continue to plague the Big Apple, the city’s elected leaders apparently have concluded that “fat shaming” is a more serious and immediate problem; a position echoed by the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) – an actual nonprofit advocacy group, not an organization created for a satire program.It should be noted that New York is no Johnny-Come-Lately to such Nanny State-ism. In late 2015, for example, the city adopted “guidelines” banning the “misgendering” of individuals. Given its history of woke-ism, it is a virtual certainty that New York City will continue to provide material for many future editions of TW3.On the west coast, San Francisco’s always entertaining city council joined its east-coast counterpart when it announced last week that it had created...
by Bob Barr | May 18, 2023 | Townhall Article |
TownhallWhen the Surgeon General of the United States this month issued an official “Advisory” on Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation, I was inclined to dismiss the paper as just another example of the federal government spending taxpayer money on an issue over which it has no reasonable jurisdiction. While the Loneliness “alarm” published by Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy is in fact another taxpayer-funded project over which there is no reasonable basis in the Constitution giving Uncle Sam legitimate jurisdiction, the nation’s “Top Doc” is actually onto something here, even if he fails to consider one of its primary causes.Humans are fundamentally “social animals,” and for millennia social relationships have provided the context in which cultures develop and thrive (or not). Social discourse is the medium in which advances are made, in everything from the sciences to philosophy and from medicine to government structure. Failure to engage socially on both individual and collective levels can be, and demonstrably are, factors contributing to stagnation at the micro and macro level.The very form of government and social structure embodied in our Constitution is framed as a “social compact.” Without social interaction, interpersonal discourse, and mutual understanding, the relationships between the citizenry and government, and the checks and balances incorporated into our constitutional republic, will no longer provide the essential ingredients for us to remain free.There are, as Dr. Murthy describes in his Advisory, other very real benefits to social interactions.The Surgeon General notes that isolation from fellow humans has been shown to diminish an individual’s mental and physical health, even leading to increased risk of heart disease, stroke, and dementia. The...
by Bob Barr | May 17, 2023 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerLast week, the GOP-controlled House Oversight Committee publicly outlined a series of financial transactions possibly implicating various Biden family members in corrupt financial dealings involving millions of dollars.What the American public does not realize is that the information uncovered and made public by the committee, came primarily from what are known as Suspicious Activity Reports or “SARs.” These reports are secret and are routinely filed against private citizens by banks and other financial entities (including casinos and mortgage brokers) as mandated by federal law.The grounds on which each SAR is filed can be for something as significant as a large international wire transfer, or as mundane as a deposit of a cashier’s check or cash by a bank customer who just sold an automobile and simply wants to place the money in their account.The bank customer will almost never know that such a report has been filed with Uncle Sam, because under the 1970 law that created SARs the financial institution is prohibited from informing the customer.SARs forms have been modified over the past half century, but still require all employees of financial institutions to file a report whenever they consider that a customer’s transaction has “raised suspicion.” While neither the SAR itself nor the SAR Instructions explain in detail what constitutes a legal basis on which to conclude that a customer’s activity is sufficiently “suspicious” to warrant filing a SAR, the sweep of the law is extremely broad.Federal law requires, for example, that any transaction of $5,000 or more must be reported via a SAR whenever the bank employee concludes it “has no business or apparent lawful purpose or is not the...
