by Bob Barr | Mar 21, 2023 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily Caller Without even waiting to see if the New York City District Attorney’s office issues an indictment against former President Donald Trump, House Republicans, led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy, made a complex situation even more complicated by calling for investigations of prosecutor Alvin Bragg to determine “if federal funds are being used to subvert our democracy by interfering in elections with politically motivated prosecutions.”Even as the GOP denounced Bragg’s anticipated indictment as a “weaponization” of prosecutorial power, House Democrats levelled precisely the same charge at McCarthy for “weaponizing” the investigatory powers available to the new Republican majority. This exercise in dueling weaponizations is not good for the country, for the reputation of the Congress (already at an anemic 18 percent), or for the GOP, which has been struggling to articulate a substantive agenda with which to widen its majority in the 2024 election cycle. None of this is to disagree with the Republican criticism of what the New York D.A. is doing, which may indeed turn out to be a politically motivated prosecution, but neither I nor McCarthy have seen the evidence presented to the Big Apple grand jury. If it returns an indictment of Trump, the burden will be on Bragg to show the public – and eventually a judge and jury – that the charges are based on solid evidence reflective of serious public interest. If Bragg fails in this task, he will have only boosted Trump’s image as a victim and destroyer of the Establishment.But, jumping to the conclusion that the still-unrevealed indictment is not only without substantive merit but also somehow rendered in violation of federal laws as would give the House Judiciary...
by Bob Barr | Mar 16, 2023 | Townhall Article |
TownhallPresident Biden signed an Executive Order on “Reducing Gun Violence and Making Communities Safer” this week and delivered prepared remarks to those gathered in Monterrey Park, California, to witness the event. The Order itself promises the American people more “reports” and “plans” that largely repeat what the laws already on the books allow or require. His public remarks added nothing new to the “reduce gun violence” debate, even as he reiterated a favorite gun-control lie to the American people.In other words, the much-heralded event was more of the same – plans, reports, and lies.First, the Big Lie.A major component of this administration’s narrative to “reduce gun violence” has been to shift blame from failures by prosecutors to enforce gun laws already on the books, to businesses that lawfully sell firearms and to the firearms industry more broadly. To market this blame-shifting, Biden and the previous Democrat administration of which he was a part, routinely claim that the “gun industry” is immune from being sued.Yesterday, for example, Biden declared that the “gun industry” is “the only outfit you can’t sue these days.” This is a flat out lie, but, as with other falsehoods by government officials, the more it is repeated the more likely it is to be believed by the American public and to serve as the basis for more gun control measures.In fact, the 2005 “Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act,’’ does not shield firearms businesses from being sued for the negligent manufacture of a firearm, nor does it immunize them from being held legally liable if they sell or transfer a gun knowing or having reason to believe it will be used unlawfully. This...
by Bob Barr | Mar 14, 2023 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerWhile there is no definitive, scientific definition of “Generation Z,” or “Zoomers” as they also are known, in general they share much in common with what in the last decade of the 20th century became known as “Snowflakes” — individuals who are overly sensitive, timid, and self-centered. In contradistinction to this timorous façade, however, the sense of Snowflakes’ high self-worth leads them often to be extremely intolerant, mean and nasty, especially when in a group.Emory University English Professor Mark Bauerlein noted this in The Dumbest Generation Grows Up, his most recent book analyzing today’s young adults who, while being led to consider their internet-filled lives a path to “utopia,” morph into a “fury” when threatened with ideas and circumstances not in accord with their worldview. This Snowflake fury was on display just last week at Stanford University Law School, when a federal appeals court judge, who had been invited by the Federalist Society to speak at Stanford Law School, was rudely heckled by students upset that he did not share the disrupters’ views on abortion, the Second Amendment, and other controversial topics. Unlike other similar disruptive scenarios, the Stanford wannabe lawyer-hecklers were egged on by one of the law school’s top administrators – the associate dean responsible for ensuring “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Once the heckling and calls for the “racist” judge to shut up began, this “adult” in the room, Associate Dean Tirien Steinbach, usurped the lectern reserved for the speaker and bloviated at length about how the mere presence of such a jurist was “threatening” to her and some of the students in the room.“Threatening,” indeed, simply to hear from a judge who might...
