by Bob Barr | Nov 8, 2022 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily Caller President Biden’s prime time address to the nation on November 2nd, less than a week before today’s midterm election, was billed by the White House as a major speech about saving “democracy.” In reality, it was as pointless a presidential speech as America has heard in decades. It was doom and gloom delivered in Biden’s signature unfriendly, if not downright threatening tone, through clenched teeth. The speech was so bad, in fact, that a CNN commentator labeled it “head-scratching.” From a practical political perspective, Biden’s speech was about a far as one could possibly stray from the issue — as in election cycle after election cycle — that tends to drag voters from their couches to the polling place: the economy. Whatever the reason or whoever the author of the speech, it epitomizes the gulf between the real world and how the President appears to view it. Even as Biden was telling his countrymen that “democracy” is at stake because of “extreme MAGA Republicans’” subversive efforts, record numbers of voters already had already voted – hardly evidence of voter “suppression.” Biden tried his best to cast the nation’s situation in the most dire terms possible. Ignoring the clear fact that the economy is on the ballot this year, he claimed repeatedly that “Democracy is on the ballot”; and not only on the ballot, but “at risk” because of “dark forces” working against our freedom to vote in a true “moment of generational importance.” The President spoke of “election deniers” as the harbingers of democracy’s doom. Even were election “deniers” running for offices up and down the ballot and in every one...
by Bob Barr | Nov 1, 2022 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily Caller New 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...
by Bob Barr | Oct 25, 2022 | Daily Caller Article, Uncategorized |
Daily Caller A 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...
by Bob Barr | Oct 3, 2022 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily Caller Not too many years before the declining quality of its cars forced the Oldsmobile division of General Motors to disband, the company launched a catchy but ultimately unsuccessful ad campaign – “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile.” Today’s FBI is not your father’s FBI. The FBI with which I worked during my tenure as the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia from 1986 to 1990, was a law enforcement agency widely recognized as the country’s best. The Bureau’s investigative jurisdiction extended to hundreds of federal crimes — from the well-known bank robberies and counterespionage cases to highly technical and complex computer crimes. Rarely in those days was there evidence that the Bureau’s investigations were politically motivated. In fact, at times, the Bureau was hesitant to launch or continue investigations precisely because it feared appearing partisan. FBI special agents were well-trained in the use of firearms and in the most appropriate tactics for effecting arrests and serving subpoenas or search warrants. Its special agents and leadership had learned the hard way over the decades to be prepared for any eventuality when undertaking such actions. Excessive shows of firepower, however (firepower exhibited for its own sake or to “make a point”), was neither the norm nor the acceptable exception. How times have changed. As the American public has repeatedly witnessed in recent years, and not just since President Biden’s swearing-in nearly two years ago, dramatic and over-the-top exhibition of firepower in arrests of high-profile or controversial individuals, has become an accepted if not normal Bureau practice. Just ask Roger Stone, whose pre-dawn arrest at his home in early 2019, was carried out by...
by Bob Barr | Sep 26, 2022 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily Caller Last Thursday’s unveiling of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy‘s long-promised “Commitment to America” is a step in the right direction, in that it offers voters a sense that the GOP at least has an agenda. But it is hardly a giant leap and lacks the excitement, specificity, and strength that made 1994’s “Contract With America” such a game-changer. Unlike its predecessor, this latest attempt to provide a scoresheet for evaluating House candidates reads as if it was drafted by a committee or committees, which in fact it apparently was. Not that such preparation is a fatal defect, but if the resulting document is wordy, lacking in clarity and precision, and comes across as an effort to please everyone who had a hand in its drafting, it loses the very attributes that made the 1994 Contract so appealing. Perhaps the 2022 Commitment is so different from its predecessor because the political environment in which this year’s mid-term voters will cast their votes is so dissimilar. In 1994 Democrats entered the final weeks before the November elections blissfully confident that their four-decade long House majority would hold once again. This year, virtually every poll indicates the Democrats will lose their majority in the House. In such environment, perhaps it makes sense to present a national Republican agenda that is strong on generalities and short on specifics; a game plan that provides just enough substance to qualify as an actual agenda without alienating voters already inclined to vote Republican. If so, it is precisely the type of timidity that many Republican voters have come to identify with the GOP in recent years. The 1994 Contract...
by Bob Barr | Sep 20, 2022 | Daily Caller Article |
Daily Caller With a huge public workforce, high unemployment, and an energy sector plagued with recurrent Third World-style blackouts, is Puerto Rico a sign of things to come for the United States mainland? The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is an “unincorporated territory” of the United States whose 3.2 million citizens enjoy U.S. citizenship. To be fair, the island suffers from weather and geography problems not of its own making. It lies in the path of tropical storms and hurricanes that periodically cause widespread damage, such as Hurricane Fiona which crossed the island last Sunday. The Commonwealth’s problems, however, extend beyond geography and weather. Even before Fiona hit, the entire island had been without electricity. Some areas had not fully recovered from a previous island-wide blackout in 2017. The electricity situation has become so notoriously bad that one of Puerto Rico’s internationally known singers, Bad Bunny, included complaints about his homeland’s energy failings in a recent music video. Not only are Puerto Rico’s outdated and poorly maintained power plants constantly vulnerable to storms, but also to what has become almost a regular occurrence – fires caused by faulty equipment. Whatever the cause, of course, power outages have a ripple effect that cuts off water to homes, businesses, schools, and hospitals; in turn leading to serious economic and health concerns. As with issues faced by Americans on the mainland, shoveling more taxpayer dollars at problems does not necessarily result in better quality of services or products. In recent years, because of the devastation caused by Puerto Rico’s constantly failing electrical grid system, billion of dollars have flowed from the mainland to the island for the...
