by Bob Barr | Jan 4, 2022 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerAs the Biden administration nears the end of its first year, the focus of its Department of Defense appears not to be on meeting our military’s ability to defeat real and potential foes. Instead, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin continues his high-priority campaign to chase “extremism” within the ranks.Austin relentlessly pursues this boogeyman notwithstanding that the most recent Defense Department report on “extremism,” published just last month, conceded that over the course of its nearly year-long study, it could find “less than 100” incidents of such behavior among active duty and reserve personnel (which totals some 2,145,900 men and women across all military branches).The current administration’s apparent obsession with ferreting out “extremism” among active duty and reserve personnel, including civilian military contract personnel and the many more millions of veterans, comes even as recent evaluations of America’s military readiness shows serious deficiencies. Despite this, non-governmental groups to which Austin’s Defense Department continues to turn for data and approval – including the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) – lament that even more is not being done to ensure a fully “woke” military.The term “woke” is not used in either the December 2021 Defense Department report, or in a lengthy investigative analysis of “extremism” in the military published by The Associated Press just last week. “Wokeness,” however, is the clear goal of this crusade to identify and rid the armed forces of those with views disfavored by the like of both the SPLC and the Biden administration.The new definition of “Extremist Activities” now to govern backgrounds and activities of military personnel as well as those civilians working with the armed forces,...
by Bob Barr | Dec 29, 2021 | Townhall Article |
TownhallAll things considered, 2021 was a good year for Republicans. In 2022 will the GOP build on its 2021 successes, or allow itself to be dragged back to 2020? The answer is right in front of our eyes. This year has been a disaster for the Democrats largely because they refused to move forward, electing instead to remain mired in the past and fighting yesterday’s battles. If Republicans take the same course in 2022, they will likely reap the same disappointing harvest. The events of last January 6 at the U.S. Capitol will predictably be a focal point for Democrat campaigns heading into 2022. They really have nothing positive from 2021 on which to campaign, so they will use 1/6 as a lure to drag Republicans down, too. The last thing Republicans need is to take that bait and fight on that playing field; doing so would be a sure way to turn off moderate Republicans, as well as independent voters who the GOP must reach in order to regain majorities in the House and Senate.This, of course, is easier said than done. In addition to Democrats chumming the waters, some on the GOP’s own team refuse to move forward. They see 1/6 as a positive flashpoint and Biden’s heavy-handed response to it as a wedge issue to churn up anger on the Right. This would be a major strategic mistakeAs right as these Republicans are about the federal government’s overzealous response to 1/6, it is not the winning message going forward. Voters, especially those not already committed to the GOP, yearn for a vision for the future rather than to be repeatedly enraged...
by Bob Barr | Dec 27, 2021 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerFor as long as I can remember, whenever I went through the checkout line at our local supermarket, the cashier would ask politely, “Did you find everything you were looking for, Sir?” Until recently, I routinely answered, “Yes, thank you,” although I would think to myself, Of course I found everything, this is the United States. No longer.For the past year, when I am asked that question by the always very polite supermarket cashier, my answer has become, “No, but thank you for asking.” In my mind, I find myself wanting to ask the cashier, have we become a Third World country?Welcome to the Brave New World of Biden’s America, where empty grocery store shelves and gas station pumps festooned with the little yellow bags indicating empty pumps have become the norm.Dealing with empty grocery store shelves and gas pumps, however, is not the only or even the most serious evidence that America today is not the America of previous eras, especially the nation that, since the end of WW II, has served as the world’s beacon of political and economic freedom.Having to circumvent shortages of one product or another in food purchases or searching for a full gas pump are things that can be dealt with, at least in the short term. Working around more serious indications of the decline in our heretofore expected standard of living are problems not so easily dismissed.Inflation, long a hallmark of economies of developing and Third World countries unable or unwilling to rein in impediments to free market economics, is now in the United States at levels not seen since the disaster that was...
