by Bob Barr | Apr 13, 2021 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerEditor’s note: We endeavor to bring you the top voices on current events representing a range of perspectives. Below is a column arguing that the current boycott against Georgia will not be effective in changing the state’s new voting law. You can find a counterpoint here, where Alan Tonelson argues that boycotts like the one against Georgia can be highly effective and may cause a wave of similar boycotts.Anyone searching for reasoned analysis or common sense in the decision by Major League Baseball to pack up this summer’s All-Star Game in Atlanta and trek it across the country to Colorado, are doomed to be disappointed. Also destined to be let down will be liberals hoping that the brouhaha surrounding the recent reform of Georgia’s voting laws will push Gov. Brian Kemp and fellow Georgia Republicans to back away from the ballot reform measures they worked so hard to pass.The ultimate question, of course, is whether Peach State voters will remember this controversy as a deciding factor a year and a half from now when Kemp, Democratic Sen. Ralph Warnock and dozens of other candidates from both major parties seek reelection. Only time will answer that political conundrum.But for now, and certainly once the dust kicked up by MLB’s precipitous decision dies down after the summer classic in Denver, it likely will be a return to business as usual in Georgia.The improbability that Democrat hopes for a surge of corporate support for their “woke” voting rights movement will grab hold in the short term, results from a number of factors. Most important among these is the fact that Kemp is...
by Bob Barr | Apr 12, 2021 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily CallerLast week, under pressure from the extreme left wing of the Democrat Party, President Joe Biden emerged briefly from his safe house on Pennsylvania Avenue and re-declared his commitment to battle the “epidemic” of gun violence.The specific measures he outlined were covered by the mainstream media as a major newsworthy event, but in fact represented little of real substance. The importance of Biden’s message, however, lies not so much in the specific measures actually proposed, but in his words that reflect the president’s deep-seated animosity toward the Second Amendment and those who support it.For example, it was deeply disturbing that the country’s new Attorney General, Merrick Garland, echoed the president’s commitment to gun control, and that David Chipman, a fervent gun control advocate, was being nominated to head the government agency with primary jurisdiction over federal firearms laws – the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives or “ATF.”Biden began by going after the low-hanging fruit – so-called “ghost guns.” There is in fact nothing supernatural about such firearms. Calling them by this cute shorthand is a typical gun control ploy to use certain words designed to scare the public into believing there is a frightening menace lurking out there. This is the same tactic used by the Left when they call the AR-15 rifle, the most popular, lawful rifle in America, a “weapon of war” (which it certainly is not).In reality, what Biden calls “ghost guns” are nothing more than parts kits for firearms that can be purchased and assembled by an individual, usually a hobbyist, without containing registration markings for the government to track. Such firearms...
by Bob Barr | Apr 8, 2021 | Uncategorized |
The FTC is supposed to be a non-partisan federal regulatory agency, un-swayed by partisan politics and the influence of outside companies. As the Google documents show, it’s not.The FederalistIt is hardly a secret the Barack Obama White House had a cozy relationship with Google. Between 2009 to 2015, representatives and lobbyists for the company averaged one White House meeting a week. In what can only be described as a Google-Obama revolving door, nearly 250 individuals moved either from the government to Google or Google to the government during the Obama presidency.While politicization of executive branch agencies has become the norm for both major parties, the Obama administration’s tentacles of politicization appear to have reached even further, deep into the regulatory arena.Leaked documents recently obtained by Politico demonstrate the Obama White House’s tight relationship with the search engine giant may have even influenced the behavior of the Federal Trade Commission, one of the highest so-called independent regulatory enforcement and consumer protection agencies in the land. The memos reveal, for example, that despite having overwhelming data that the company operated as an unchecked monopoly, the FTC declined to pursue enforcement against Google in 2013.As a former senior member of the House Judiciary Committee, I find these revelations deeply distressing and believe they should drum up calls in Congress to reform and depoliticize these vital federal institutions. This is essential to ensure — to the greatest extent possible — that truth, justice, and law and order prevail in our country.Federal investigators at the FTC were alerted early in Obama’s first term that Google’s surge in the then-nascent mobile phone industry appeared to be illegal and something needed to...
