by Bob Barr | Nov 17, 2021 | Townhall Article |
TownhallIn one breath, liberals call local police “racists” and demand their departments be defunded, and in the very next they rush to federal law enforcement agencies for help at the slightest hint of trouble. This is the whipsaw effect of how the Left views law enforcement – local cops bad, federal cops good. It is a perspective totally at odds with the framework on which our federal Republic was constructed.Consider our public schools.Leftists for years have fought tooth and nail to remove resource officers from schools, claiming their presence is “detrimental to the welfare of our children, leading to the increased criminalization of youth for child-like behaviors” (ACLU of Washington). And yet, as The Intercept reports, last month school district officials in Maryland’s Prince George’s County reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for help with monitoring the social media accounts of students, in hopes of curbing an outbreak of violence in two area high schools.The Deep State’s abuses of national security powers in our post-9/11 world are numerous and well-known, from the Bush Administration’s unconstitutional directive to cell phone carriers to conduct warrantless surveillance of customers’ phones, to the continued use of the USA PATRIOT Act for investigations having nothing to do with national security. This mindset now has filtered down to community school board meetings. Even in the face of severe criticism, for the Biden administration, it’s “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.” Attorney General Merrick Garland refuses to rescind his recent directive that the FBI and United States Attorneys across the country develop plans to address disruptions at local school board meetings. No serious debate today can be had that...
by Bob Barr | Nov 15, 2021 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerLast week was especially bad for President Joe Biden’s plan to force all Americans to be vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus. How the administration responds to the setbacks will reveal whether we have a president who actually believes in and will abide by the rule of law, or one who considers himself above such a bothersome technicality.On September 9, Biden angrily lectured the American people about the COVID-19 pandemic, laying out plans for vaccination mandates to include all civilian and military federal employees and contractors, and for anyone working for a private company with 100 or more employees.Biden’s plan was indeed bold. As it turns out, it was too bold. On Friday, a federal appeals court in New Orleans, answering one of some two dozen pending federal court challenges to Biden’s COVID mandates, told him to go back to the drawing board.Biden’s plan hit another snag last week. The Army general in charge of Oklahoma’s National Guard issued an order declaring that no troops under his command will be required to be COVID vaccinated; this in direct defiance of a mandate issued in August by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.The November 12 opinion by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit dealt with the November 5 “Emergency Temporary Standard” issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) purporting to implement the 100 employee mandate portion of Biden’s September edict. (The court had issued a preliminary stay of the mandate on November 6.)Despite Biden’s declaring that this mandate was among those he deemed essential to save the country from the continued ravages of COVID-19, the appeals court...
by Bob Barr | Nov 10, 2021 | Townhall Article |
TownhallThe COVID pandemic is over. Thanks to the work of President Donald Trump, a vaccine is widely available to anyone who wants it. And, coming from that research, a new pill from Pfizer that cuts the risk of death and hospitalization by 90 percent in individuals who contract COVID, is in front of the Food and Drug Administration for approval. Those who want to protect themselves from COVID can do so easily, and those who chose not to take advantage of the vaccine or the pill (when it is approved) are in any event are unlikely to die from the sickness. By all goals and measures set at the beginning of the pandemic, this is moment for which we have waited. The return to “normalcy” can begin right now; except, that is, for Dr. Anthony Fauci and his band of merry Biden Administration fearmongers standing in our way. Democrats know that as soon as the pandemic is over, the COVID power party will end, and all those “emergency” powers they have enjoyed for two years will run dry. For a political party that invested so much of its identity into using COVID to moralize, mandate, and manipulate, the end of the pandemic is a worst-case scenario. It is not that they do not believe the pandemic is over. They just cannot afford to let it end.The powers enjoyed for nearly two years wielded by numerous mayors, city councils, governors, and a bevy of unelected health department bureaucrats have produced a rush of political adrenaline, the likes of which have not been seen since the post-9/11 rush of anti-terrorism measures. As anyone who has worked...
