by Bob Barr | Nov 1, 2022 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerNew York is the state many conservatives love to hate because of its stridently anti-Second Amendment laws and public policies (most recently, reflected in a new law undermining the recent U.S. Supreme Court’s Bruen decision that declared unconstitutional the state’s century-old Sullivan Law that made it next to impossible for a law-abiding citizen to obtain a concealed carry permit). However, an Oct. 21 decision from Saratoga County trial court Judge Dianne Freestone, reminds us that even in the dark “blue” state of New York, reason can prevail, despite the overwhelmingly Democrat state legislature, the ultra-liberal governor, and the far-left wing state attorney general.The judge’s decision resulted from a constitutional challenge to an absentee voting law passed by the legislature in Jan. 2022. That legislation extended and expanded statewide absentee voting far beyond existing provisions in the New York Constitution — even though New Yorkers had overwhelmingly rejected this proposal in a Nov. 2021 referendum. The legislature was not content to stop there.Section 7(j) of the January 2022 legislation, for example, arrogantly robs the courts of their fundamental power to hear and decide challenges to improperly cast votes: “In no event may a court order a ballot that has been counted to be uncounted.” Although the state of New York has – unsurprisingly — appealed Judge Freestone’s ruling, the 28-page opinion is remarkable in its lucidity and boldness.For example, the judge’s explanation of absentee voting in the state presents in sharp focus the arrogant manner by which former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the legislature sought to expand absentee voting far beyond what was provided for in the prior law and existing constitutional provisions. As detailed in the court’s opinion, the narrow 1955 New...
by Bob Barr | Oct 27, 2022 | Townhall Article |
TownhallDo economic problems experienced by Americans, such as recurring food shortages and projected rationing of heating oil in northeastern states this winter, mean that the United States has slipped to “Third World Country” status? Not really. The U.S. remains a strong country with a highly developed and stable economic system. The problems we have been experiencing in recent years, however, represent a deeper, and in many respects more serious problem than being or becoming a Third World Country.The United States is slipping into the uncharted territory of a highly developed country that is losing the basic bonds of civil society that protect it from degenerating into chaos.The signs of this descent are everywhere, though the extreme politically partisan lenses through which many Americans view public policy hamper their ability or willingness to see it.In no respect is this troubling phenomenon more obvious than the recurring images of individuals committing acts of senseless violence against strangers. While we regularly see also acts of robbery and rampant shoplifting, it is the images of people being pushed onto New York subway tracks or thugs beating up elderly passers by on city streets, that most starkly remind us – or should remind us – that something dark and alarming is happening in our society.Stealing from another person or business as a means of gaining something the perpetrator could not otherwise obtain or afford, is neither a new problem nor one unique to our country or time. Organized shoplifting, or stealing to show off the perpetrator’s “chops” on social media, however, represents a newer problem – one that is far more difficult to address and correct.Acts of violent vandalism,...
by Bob Barr | Oct 25, 2022 | Daily Caller Article, Uncategorized |
Daily CallerA number of sheriffs in upstate New York are declaring that their officers will not prioritize or “aggressively enforce” the state’s recently enacted, highly restrictive gun control law. These elected sheriffs have concluded quite correctly that the state’s new law is at odds with both the Constitution of the United States and with the most recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that declared New York’s previous and long-standing gun control law – the Sullivan Act – unconstitutional.The sheriffs’ actions have rekindled a recurring debate about the powers of the more than three thousand local sheriffs serving in every state except Alaska and Connecticut. The United States has had elected sheriffs long before there was a “United States of America,” with the first one taking office in Virginia in 1652. Police departments, on the other hand, are a relatively new phenomenon. The first municipal police department not established until 1838 in Boston, Massachusetts. Unlike most county sheriffs, who hold their positions under their state constitutions, police chiefs answer only to local office holders who appointed them, not to the voters. It is this distinction that has caused a number of sheriffs in “Blue States” to earn the ire of the Left. Two factors have exacerbated this enmity in recent years – increasingly restrictive gun control measures and abusive COVID mandates by Blue State governors and legislatures. Sheriffs who decline to prioritize enforcing such laws find themselves increasingly maligned by the Left, notwithstanding the fact that they are carrying out their sworn duty to support the federal and state constitutions, and in accord with the wishes of the voters they represent.Consider Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who declared...
